The Concept of [Robot] in Children and Teens

Abstract

This paper discusses the existence of a prototypical visual mental representation associated to the concept of [robot] in children and teenagers. The study aims at determining the best design options for the MOnarCH project robots from the viewpoint of the children, the main audience of the project, involved. By accounting for the children's view a maximization of their emotional response when interacting with the robots is expected. A survey taken by children in pediatric age range is used to establish a baseline. These children are not in the hospital and hence eventual biases caused by an inpatient condition will not be present. Moreover, by comparing with the view of what a robot is by inpatient children it is possible to validate the MOnarCH in-lab trials, avoiding trials with biased scenarios. A set of 119 non-patient children is used in the study. Non-parametric statistics analysis is used on a number of hypotheses useful in the design of the robots.