Human–Robot Interactions: A Pilot Study of Psychoaffective and Cognitive Factors to Boost the Acceptance and Usability of Assistive Wearable Devices

Robotic technology to assist rehabilitation provides practical advantages compared with traditional rehabilitation treatments, but its efficacy is still disputed. This controversial effectiveness is due to different factors, including a lack of guidelines to adapt devices to users’ individual needs. These needs include the specific clinical conditions of people with disabilities, as well as their psychological and cognitive profiles. This pilot study aims to investigate the relationships between psychological, cognitive, and robot-related factors playing a role in human–robot interaction to promote a human-centric approach in robotic rehabilitation. Ten able-bodied volunteers were assessed for their anxiety, experienced workload, cognitive reserve, and perceived exoskeleton usability before and after a task with a lower-limb exoskeleton (i.e., 10 m path walking for 10 trials). Pre-trial anxiety levels were higher than post-trial ones (p < 0.01). While trait anxiety levels were predictive of the experienced effort (Adjusted-r2 = 0.43, p = 0.02), the state anxiety score was predictive of the perceived overall workload (Adjusted-r2 = 0.45, p = 0.02). High–average cognitive reserve scores were predictive of the perception of exoskeleton usability (Adjusted-r2 = 0.45, p = 0.02). A negative correlation emerged between the workload and the perception of personal identification with the exoskeleton (r = −0.67, p-value = 0.03). This study provides preliminary evidence of the impact of cognitive and psychoaffective factors on the perception of workload and overall device appreciation in exoskeleton training. It also suggests pragmatic measures such as familiarization time to reduce anxiety and end-user selection based on cognitive profiles. These assessments may provide guidance on the personalization of training.