Social Presence in Evaluations for a Humanoid Robot and Its Effect on Children-Robot Relationship

Abstract

AbstractAs children are at a critical stage in their lives in developing and practicing social skills, they tend to imagine objects as interactive agents. For example, even a toy dinosaur can be perceived as affable and more as a social entity, namely, with a strong social presence (SP). This study investigated whether perceived SP changes (measured using the SP questionnaire) as children interacted with a robot. Furthermore, we investigated how SP modulated children-robot relationships and children’s overall attitudes towards robots. Children aged 6–12 interacted with a companion robot, RoBoHoN, for short intervals. Attitude evaluations were completed at three-time points: prior-, mid-, and post-interaction. SP and rapport with RoBoHoN were measured and compared mid-and post-interaction, while attitudes towards the robot were tested prior- and post-interaction. The results showed a stronger intention to use robots before interaction correlated with higher SP scores with RoBoHoN. As SP level was stable across mid- and post-interaction, we analyzed SP as a between-groups factor to compare attitude evaluations among children who rated RoBoHoN with higher versus lower SP scores. The high SP group found RoBoHoN to be more likable and playing with it as more enjoyable, but the effect on rapport level was marginal. The Implicit Association Task revealed no bias towards robots among children in both groups. This study shows SP’s positive effect on children-robot interaction and highlights the importance of SP in designing social companion robots for children.KeywordsChildren-robot interactionSocial presenceRobots acceptanceNegative attitude towards robotsImplicit association task