Social robots have the potential to provide support in a number of practical domains, such as learning and behaviour change. This potential is particularly relevant for children, who have proven receptive to interactions with social robots. To reach learning and therapeutic goals, a number of issues need to be investigated, notably the design of an effective child-robot interaction (cHRI) to ensure the child remains engaged in the relationship and that educational goals are met. Typically, current cHRI research experiments focus on a single type of interaction activity (e.g. a game). However, these can suffer from a lack of adaptation to the child, or from an increasingly repetitive nature of the activity and interaction. In this paper, we motivate and propose a practicable solution to this issue: an adaptive robot able to switch between multiple activities within single interactions. We describe a system that embodies this idea, and present a case study in which diabetic children collaboratively learn with the robot about various aspects of managing their condition. We demonstrate the ability of our system to induce a varied interaction and show the potential of this approach both as an educational tool and as a research method for long-term cHRI.

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We examine the use of role-switching as an intrinsic motivational mechanism to increase engagement in long-term child-robot interaction. The present study describes a learning framework where children between 9 and 11-years-old interact with a robot to improve their knowledge and habits with regards to healthy life-styles. Experiments were carried out in Italy where 41 children were divided in three groups interacting with: (i ) a robot with a role-switching mechanism, (ii ) a robot without a role-switching mechanism and (iii ) an interactive video. Additionally, a control group composed of 43 more children, who were not exposed to any interactive approach, was used as a baseline of the study.During the intervention period, the three groups were exposed to three interactive sessions once a week. The aim of the study was to find any difference in healthy-habits acquisition based on alternative interactive systems, and to evaluate the effectiveness * raquel.ros.espinoza@gmail.com † oleari.elettra@hsr.it ‡ pozzi.clara@hsr.it § sacchitelli.francesca@hsr.it ¶ baranzini.daniele@hsr.it bagherzadhal.anahita@hsr.it * * sanna.alberto@hsr.it † † y.demiris@imperial.ac.uk of the role-switch approach as a trigger for engagement and motivation while interacting with a robot. The results provide evidence that the rate of children adopting healthy habits during the intervention period was higher for those interacting with a robot. Moreover, alignment with the robot behaviour and achievement of higher engagement levels were also observed for those children interacting with the robot that used the role-switching mechanism. This supports the notion that role-switching facilitates sustained long-interactions between a child and a robot.

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L’alimentazione non corretta, il sovrappeso e l’obesità sono importanti fattori di rischio per l’insorgenza delle dislipidemie secondarie, che a loro volta rientrano tra le patologie responsabili delle prime cause di morte in Italia. Gli esperti della nutrizione hanno il compito di guidare i pazienti verso il raggiungimento del peso ideale e del miglioramento del profilo lipidico ed ematochimico in generale. Studi dimostrano come un dimagrimento di 5 Kg porta a una riduzione significativa dei livelli di colesterolemia e trigliceridemia con effetti positivi anche sul quadro ipertensivo. Inoltre, la scienza riporta costantemente studi che dimostrano l’efficacia puntuale dei singoli alimenti o gruppi di alimenti nel trattamento delle dislipidemie secondarie. L’aspetto nutrizionale dunque è oggi considerato facente parte del processo assistenziale dei pazienti e deve essere concretizzato attraverso decisioni chiare e obiettivi specifici. I piani nutrizionali devono essere bilanciati e allo stesso tempo si deve porre attenzione all’eventualità di raccomandare specifici gruppi alimentari o escluderne altri.