3 research outputs found
Children's perception and interpretation of robots and robot behaviour
The world of robotics, like that of all technology is changing rapidly (Melson, et al., 2009).
As part of an inter-disciplinary project investigating the emergence of artificial culture in
robot societies, this study set out to examine children’s perception of robots and interpretation
of robot behaviour. This thesis is situated in an interdisciplinary field of human–robot
interactions, drawing on research from the disciplines of sociology and psychology as well as
the fields of engineering and ethics. The study was divided into four phases: phase one
involved children from two primary schools drawing a picture and writing a story about their
robot. In phase two, children observed e-puck robots interacting. Children were asked
questions regarding the function and purpose of the robots’ actions. Phase three entailed data
collection at a public event: Manchester Science Festival. Three activities at the festival: ‘XRay
Art Under Your Skin’, ‘Swarm Robots’ and ‘Build-a-Bugbot’ formed the focus of this
phase. In the first activity, children were asked to draw the components of a robot and were
then asked questions about their drawings. During the second exercise, children’s comments
were noted as they watched e-puck robot demonstrations. In the third exercise, children were
shown images and asked whether these images were a robot or a ‘no-bot’. They were then
prompted to provide explanations for their answers.
Phase 4 of the research involved children identifying patterns of behaviour amongst e-pucks.
This phase of the project was undertaken as a pilot for the ‘open science’ approach to
research to be used by the wider project within which this PhD was nested. Consistent with
existing literature, children endowed robots with animate and inanimate characteristics
holding multiple understandings of robots simultaneously. The notion of control appeared to
be important in children’s conception of animacy. The results indicated children’s
perceptions of the location of the locus of control plays an important role in whether they
view robots as autonomous agents or controllable entities. The ways in which children
perceive robots and robot behaviour, in particular the ways in which children give meaning to
robots and robot behaviour will potentially come to characterise a particular generation.
Therefore, research should not only concentrate on the impact of these technologies on
children but should focus on capturing children’s perceptions and viewpoints to better
understand the impact of the changing technological world on the lives of children