Can an LLM-Powered Socially Assistive Robot Effectively and Safely Deliver Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? A Study With University Students

Understand

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a widely used therapeutic method for guiding individuals toward restructuring their thinking patterns as a means of addressing anxiety, depression, and other challenges.

• We developed a large language model (LLM)-powered prompt-engineered socially assistive robot (SAR) that guides participants through interactive CBT at-home exercises.
• We evaluated the performance of the SAR through a 15-day study with 38 university students randomly assigned to interact daily with the robot or a chatbot (using the same LLM), or complete traditional CBT worksheets throughout the duration of the study.
• We measured weekly therapeutic outcomes, changes in pre-/post-session anxiety measures, and adherence to completing CBT exercises.