Robots as dogs?

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2009

In this paper we present a methodological variation of assessing emotional attachment of children and adults to the robotic pet AIBO, using an atypical application area (a shopping mall) and leaving the participation in the study as totally voluntary. This free exploration case study was situated in a shopping mall for three reasons: People do not expect a robotic pet in this context (first time reaction) and the context allows to address a high number of possible participants and to create an awareness for robots in general. To investigate the methodological concept and to find out if such a setting can be beneficial for a better understanding of the influence of first time contact with a robotic pet to the emotional attachment, we conducted the case study on three consecutive work days. We could show that this method reveals interesting and novel aspects on the development of emotional attachment.

Journal of Social Issues, 2009

Robotic "pets" are being marketed as social companions and are used in the emerging field of robot-assisted activities, including robot-assisted therapy (RAA). However, the limits to and potential of robotic analogues of living animals as social and therapeutic partners remain unclear. Do children and adults view robotic pets as "animal-like," "machine-like," or some combination of both? How do social behaviors differ toward a robotic versus living dog? To address these issues, we synthesized data from three studies of the robotic dog AIBO: (1) a content analysis of 6,438 Internet postings by 182 adult AIBO owners; (2) observations

Developmental Psychology, 2012

Children will increasingly come of age with personified robots and potentially form social and even moral relationships with them. What will such relationships look like? To address this question, 90 children (9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds) initially interacted with a humanoid robot, Robovie, in 15-min sessions. Each session ended when an experimenter interrupted Robovie's turn at a game and, against Robovie's stated objections, put Robovie into a closet. Each child was then engaged in a 50-min structural-developmental interview. Results showed that during the interaction sessions, all of the children engaged in physical and verbal social behaviors with Robovie. The interview data showed that the majority of children believed that Robovie had mental states (e.g., was intelligent and had feelings) and was a social being (e.g., could be a friend, offer comfort, and be trusted with secrets). In terms of Robovie's moral standing, children believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be harmed psychologically but did not believe that Robovie was entitled to its own liberty (Robovie could be bought and sold) or civil rights (in terms of voting rights and deserving compensation for work performed). Developmentally, while more than half the 15-year-olds conceptualized Robovie as a mental, social, and partly moral other, they did so to a lesser degree than the 9-and 12-year-olds. Discussion focuses on how (a) children's social and moral relationships with future personified robots may well be substantial and meaningful and (b) personified robots of the future may emerge as a unique ontological category.

Journal of Physical Agents (JoPha), 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine how children think about and attribute features of friendship to a robot after a brief interaction with one. Children visiting a science centre located in a major Western Canadian city were randomly selected to participate in an experiment set up at the centre. A total of 184 children ages 5 to 16 years (M = 8.18 years) with an approximate even number of boys and girls participated. Children were interviewed after observing a traditional robot, a small 5 degree of freedom robot arm, perform a block stacking task. Content analysis was used to examine responses to nine open-ended questions. Results indicate that the majority of children were willing to engage in friendship with the robot by showing positive affiliation and social support towards it, as well as sharing activities, and communicating with it. Significant sex differences in how children ascribe characteristics of friendship to a robot were also found.

Cognitive Development, 2016

Prior research shows that children's reasoning about robots tests the boundaries of their ontological commitments. In this study, we investigated the potential role of parent-child conversation in guiding children's developing understandings about robots. Parents and children (3-and 5-year-olds) engaged in a play session in which they talked about a robotic dog, a live animal (a rodent), and a human-made artifact (a toy car). Afterwards, participants reasoned about whether each item had a set of animate (e.g., biological, psychological, sensory) and artifact (e.g., human-made, breakable) properties. Findings revealed that parents and children spontaneously talked about the robotic dog using both animate and artifact properties during the play session. Furthermore, parent talk in the play session had the most influence on children's reasoning when the properties under consideration were less well-established in children's thinking and/or not easily identified by visual cues (i.e., psychological and sensory).

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2021

Children with severe motor impairment due to cerebral palsy have difficulties engaging in play, although they want to play games that typically developing children play. The barriers imposed by motor impairments against engaging in play can be addressed through the use of robots. We aim to identify how children, who have extensive experience of play, imagine what a robot is and what features would make a robot good to play with. Using a qualitative description design, 19 children from urban and rural settings participated in focus groups to draw and talk about the robots they would like to exist. The data were coded and analyzed using a summative approach to content analysis. The findings revealed that the children imagined that a good robot to play with is one that has an anthropomorphic appearance, is tough and strong, has controls, and that is able to move, grab, speak, and play popular children’s games. In particular, the girls imagined that robots should be able to express posi...

This study tests the effect of long-term artifi cial development of a robot on users' feelings of social presence and social responses toward the robot. The study is a 2 (developmental capability: developmental versus fully matured) x 2 (number of participants: individual versus group) between-subjects experiment (N = 40) in which participants interact with Sony's robot dog, AIBO, for a month. The results showed that the developmental capability factor had signifi cant positive impacts on (a) perceptions of AIBO as a lifelike creature, (b) feelings of social presence, and (c) social responses toward AIBO. The number of participants factor, however, affected only the parasocial relationship and the buying intention variables. No interaction between the two factors was found. The results of a series of path analyses showed that feelings of social presence mediated participants' social responses toward AIBO. We discuss implications of the current study on human–robot interaction, the computers are social actors (CASA) paradigm, and the study of (tele)presence.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017

Social robots are becoming more sophisticated; in many cases they offer complex, autonomous interactions, responsive behaviors, and biomimetic appearances. These features may have significant impact on how people perceive and engage with robots; young children may be particularly influenced due to their developing ideas of agency. Young children are considered to hold naive beliefs of animacy and a tendency to mis-categorise moving objects as being alive but, with development, children can demonstrate a biological understanding of animacy. We experimentally explore the impact of children's age and a humanoid's movement on children's perceptions of its animacy. Our humanoid's behavior varied in apparent autonomy, from motionless, to manually operated, to covertly operated. Across conditions, younger children rated the robot as being significantly more person-like than older children did. We further found an interaction effect: younger children classified the robot as significantly more machine-like if they observed direct operation in contrast observing the motionless or apparently autonomous robot. Our findings replicate field results, supporting the modal model of the developmental trajectory for children's understanding of animacy. We outline a program of research to both deepen the theoretical understanding of children's animacy beliefs and develop robotic characters appropriate across key stages of child development.

2013

Encounters with humanoid robots are new to the everyday experience of children and adults. Yet, increasingly, they are finding their place. This has occurred largely through the introduction of a class of interactive toys (including Furbies, AIBOs, and My Real Babies) that I call “relational artifacts. ” Here, I report on several years of fieldwork with commercial relational artifacts (as well as with the MIT AI Laboratory’s Kismet and Cog). It suggests that even these relatively primitive robots have been accepted as companionate objects and are changing the terms by which people judge the “appropriateness ” of machine relationships. In these relationships, robots serve as powerful objects of projection and philosophical evocation.

AI & SOCIETY, 2020

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 co...