The Effects of Robot Cognitive Reliability and Social Positioning on Child-Robot Team Dynamics
V. Charisi, L. Merino, M. Escobar, F. Caballero, R. Gomez, E. Gómez
Abstract
Human collaboration is more likely to lead to cognitive growth when all group-members are actively involved in the collaborative process. However, there are cases that intragroup relationships need support. In this paper, we present an autonomous robotic system designed to interact with a pair of children in a problem-solving setting, aiming to understand how the robot behaviour impacts the group-members’ social dynamics. We developed an autonomous system with the Haru robot which we evaluated with an experimental study with 5-8yo children (N =84) to test the impact of the robot’s cognitive reliability and social positioning on human-to-human social dynamics, task performance and help-seeking behaviour. All participants took part in a baseline session (without the robot), an intervention (with the robot in a turn-taking setting) and an evaluation session (with a robot in a voluntary interaction setting). Results indicate that children who interacted with the reliable robot had a better task performance but children who interacted with the unreliable robot exhibited more task-related social interactions. Based on the results, we propose an interaction design concept which combines the set of the evaluated robot behaviours for an adaptive targeted support of child-robot teaming.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2021_theeffectsofrobo,
title = {The Effects of Robot Cognitive Reliability and Social Positioning on Child-Robot Team Dynamics},
author = {V. Charisi and L. Merino and M. Escobar and F. Caballero and R. Gomez and E. Gómez},
booktitle = {ICRA 2021},
year = {2021}
}