Is a Robot better than Video for Initiating Remote Social Connections among Children?

Abstract

Videoconferencing technology is increasingly used in classrooms to introduce children to people from other countries and cultures in order to provide a wider learning experience. However, with traditional screen-based video conferencing technology, research has shown that it is easy for students to miss non-verbal cues that play a key role in developing human relationships. To investigate how children interact differently when their interactions are mediated through screen-based video communication versus robot-mediated communication, we conducted a study with elementary students in Korea, comparing the use of both technologies to introduce classroom students with peer-aged individuals in America. Our findings show that the children displayed more positive emotions during certain tasks and exhibited more interest and intimacy to remote participants in the context of robot-mediated communication than with video-mediated communication.

Observer Perception of Dominance and Mirroring Behavior in Human-Robot Relationships

“…Kim et al [25] found copresent robots generate stronger responses than robots that are displayed using video. This weakness may mean that the results found here represent a lower bound for the responses humanrobot dyadic behavior may generate among observers.…”

What was Hybrid? A Systematic Review of Hybrid Collaboration and Meetings Research

“…Ten of the papers used at least one form of commercial software in their studies, the names of which are indicative of their age. Skype (6) [14,32,40,100,156,159] stands out as the most used commercial software and is followed by Microsoft NetMeeting (3) [96,124,156], Google Hangouts (1) [99], MS Outlook (1) [17], MSN (1) [100], IRC (1) [100], Blackboard (1) [156] and Access Grid (1) [40]. While Skype, NetMeeting, Google Hangouts and Access Grid are used for audio/video (AV) conferencing, MS Outlook, MSN and IRC are used for text-based hybrid collaboration.…”

“…Also two papers used room-to-room videoconferencing systems and a paper studied a hybrid meeting from a conference room. Two recent papers [114,159] included telepresence robots and another recent paper [99] had a robot with a screen showing the remote participant. In terms of hybrid collaboration, at least seven of them used electronic/smart boards, three of them used tabletops [209][210][211], and one paper used a pair of networked turntables [16].…”

Connection Beyond Words: Establishing Emotional Communication with Autistic Children

“…Compared with LEGO intervention, playing with TUI could reduce the solitary activities and facilitate collaborative and associative play sequences [13]. The results of experimental studies showed the usability and emotions of touch-based interfaces were more positive than remote interfaces [14,15].…”