Do infants perceive the social robot Keepon as a communicative partner?
Andreea Peca1, Ramona Simut2, Hoang-Long Cao3
1Babeş-Bolyai University, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Infant Behavior & Development
|November 22, 2015
Summary
Infants showed more social initiations toward an interactive robot after observing human-robot interaction. This suggests that observing contingent social engagement influences infant perception of robots as social agents.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Human-Robot Interaction
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Infants readily engage with social partners.
- Understanding how infants perceive unfamiliar agents, like robots, is crucial for developing socially assistive robots.
- Prior research suggests infants attribute social properties to agents based on observed interactions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if infants perceive a robot as a social agent after witnessing human-robot contingent interaction.
- To investigate the impact of observed interactional contingency on infant social engagement with a robot.
Main Methods:
- 23 infants (9-17 months) observed either a contingent interaction between an active robot (Keepon) and an active adult, or an interaction with a non-active robot.
- Infants then had the opportunity to initiate turn-taking interactions with the robot.
- Measured variables included infant social initiations and anticipatory attention shifts.
Main Results:
- Infants showed significantly more social initiations toward the robot when they had observed contingent interaction compared to the non-active robot condition.
- No significant difference was found in the frequency of anticipatory turn-taking behaviors between the two conditions.
Conclusions:
- Observing contingent social interaction with a robot enhances infants' perception of the robot as a social agent.
- Contingency in interaction plays a key role in shaping infant social attributions towards artificial agents.
- Further research is needed to explore the nuances of anticipatory behaviors in infant-robot interactions.
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