"That Robot Played with Us!" Children's Perceptions of a Robot after a Child-Robot Group Interaction

Abstract

The design of child-centred, intelligent and collaborative robots is a challenging endeavour, which requires to understand how the implemented robot behaviours and collaboration paradigms affect children's perception about the robot. This paper presents the results of a set of semi-structured interviews of N=81, 5 to 8 years old children who previously interacted in pairs with a robot in the context of a problem-solving task. We manipulated two different factors of the robot behaviour: cognitive reliability in logic game movements (optimal vs sub-optimal) and expressivity in the communication (expressive vs neutral) and we assigned the children in one of the four conditions. At post-intervention interviews, we examined children's perceptions on the robot's attributions, collaboration and social role. Results indicate that a robot's cognitive reliability shapes the helping relationship between the children and the robot, while the robot's expressivity impacts children perception of the robot supportive ability and friendship. Finally, results also indicate that, even if children interact in pairs with the robot, their perceptions about it remain individual, although a good collective task-performance seems to empower children perception of the robot in terms of friendship and reliability.

The use of social robots as teaching assistants in schools: implications for research and practice

“…Social robots need to be designed in a way that they are child-centred and collaborative because robot behaviours and collaboration paradigms affect children's perception about the robot. Escobar-Planas et al (2022) found that cognitive reliability of the robot shapes the helping relationship between the children and the robot, while the robot's expressivity impacts the perception of the robot's support ability and friendship.…”

“…Moreover, as collaborative partners, these robots encourage teamwork, discussions, critical thinking, and creativity, contributing significantly to social development ). They also offer emotional support by engaging in conversations and providing encouragement, beneficial for students facing stress or loneliness (Escobar-Planas et al (2022)). Through equipped cameras and remote capabilities, robots enable virtual field trips, enriching understanding in geography, history, or scientific phenomena.…”

Robot in the Loop: An Ethnography-Based Approach to Robotics and Reinforcement Learning to Support On-Site Construction Work

“…Fields including HCI/CSCW and HRI have explored ethnography as a method to study work practices, technology use contexts, and accordingly guide the design of robotic technologies. In HCI/CSCW, for example, ethnography has been used to understand people's perception of robots [36][37][38], examine users' encounters with existing robots [39][40][41], co-design conceptual scenarios for human-robot collaboration [42], or reveal robots' impact on collaboration in surgery and manufacturing contexts [43][44][45]. To a lesser degree, the field of HRI also engaged with ethnographic approaches to guide technology design [46][47][48][49][50][51][52].…”