Abstract
This article studies perceptual differences of three social robots by elementary school children of ages 6–13 years (n = 107) at research fairs. The autonomous humanoid robot Pepper, an advanced social robot primarily designed as a personal assistant with movement and mobility, is compared to the teleoperated AV1 robot—designed to help elementary school children who cannot attend school to have a telepresence through the robot—and the flowerpot robot Tessa, used in the eWare system as an avatar for a home sensor system and dedicated to people with dementia living alone. These three robots were shown at the Norwegian national research fair, held in every major Norwegian city annually, where children were able to interact with the robots. Our analysis is based on quantitative survey data of the school children concerning the robots and qualitative discussions with them. By comparing three different types of social robots, we found that presence can be differently understood and conceptualized with different robots, especially relating to their function and “aliveness.” Additionally, we found a strong difference when relating robots to personal relations to one’s own grandparents versus older adults in general. We found children’s perceptions of robots to be relatively positive, curious and exploratory and that they were quite reflective on their own grandparent having a robot.
Highlights
Social robots are increasingly becoming integral parts of our daily human lives and offer great possibilities for enhancing quality of life (Fong et al 2003; Sparrow and Sparrow2006; Brose et al 2010; Riek 2017)
In two iterations of the event, we exposed young visitors to three different social robots: the humanoid autonomous robot Pepper—an advanced social robot primarily designed as a personal assistant with movement and mobility—with a simpler teleoperated robot “AV1” that is designed to help elementary school children who cannot attend school by providing a telepresence in the classroom through the robot; and thirdly, the flowerpot robot Tessa, used in the eWare system as an avatar for a home sensor system and dedicated to people with dementia living alone (Project eWare)
For Tessa, a robot designed for older adults with mild dementia, the elementary school children were in the opposite age spectrum of the primary user group; they could be potential secondary users, when visiting older family members that could have robots like Tessa
Summary
Social robots are increasingly becoming integral parts of our daily human lives and offer great possibilities for enhancing quality of life In two iterations of the event, we exposed young visitors to three different social robots: the humanoid autonomous robot Pepper—an advanced social robot primarily designed as a personal assistant with movement and mobility—with a simpler teleoperated robot “AV1” (pronounced /a-v’e-’ɛn/ [from Norwegian]) that is designed to help elementary school children who cannot attend school by providing a telepresence in the classroom through the robot; and thirdly, the flowerpot robot Tessa, used in the eWare system as an avatar for a home sensor system and dedicated to people with dementia living alone (Project eWare) These three robots differ widely in usage, functions, price, mobility and design. This is followed by a discussion focusing on two key findings: the importance of design of robots and that of care envisioning for personal relations
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