Robot-Mediated Interviews with Children : What do potential users think?

Luke Wood, Hagen Lehmann, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Austen Rayner, and Dag Syrdal, ‘Robot-Mediated Interviews with Children: What do potential users think?’, paper presented at the 50th Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour, 1 April 2014 – 4 April 2014, London, UK.When police officers are conducting interviews with children, some of the disclosures can be quite shocking. This can make it difficult for an officer to maintain their composure without subtly indicating their shock to the child, which can in turn impede the information acquisition process. Using a robotic interviewer could eliminate this problem as the behaviours and expressions of the robot can be consciously controlled. To date research investigating the potential of Robot-Mediated Interviews has focused on establishing whether children will respond to robots in an interview scenario and if so how well. The results of these studies indicate that children will talk to a robot in an interview scenario in a similar way to which they talk to a human interviewer. However, in order to test if this approach would work in a real world setting, it is important to establish what the experts (e.g. specialist child interviewers) would require from the system. To determine the needs of the users we conducted a user panel with a group of potential real world users to gather their views of our current system and find out what they would require for the system to be useful to them. The user group we worked with consisted of specialist child protection police officers based in the UK. The findings from this panel suggest that a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system would need to be more flexible than our current system in order to respond to unpredictable situations and paths of investigation. This paper gives an insight into what real world users would need from a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system

Robot-mediated interviews: : Do robots possess advantages over human interviewers when talking to children with special needs?

Wood L.J., Dautenhahn K., Lehmann H., Robins B., Rainer A., Syrdal D.S. (2013) 'Robot-Mediated Interviews: Do Robots Possess Advantages over Human Interviewers When Talking to Children with Special Needs?', In: Herrmann G., Pearson M.J., Lenz A., Bremner P., Spiers A., Leonards U. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8239. Springer, Cham Available online at doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-02675-6-6 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013Children that have a disability are up to four times more likely to be a victim of abuse than typically developing children. However, the number of cases that result in prosecution is relatively low. One of the factors influencing this low prosecution rate is communication difficulties. Our previous research has shown that typically developing children respond to a robotic interviewer very similar compared to a human interviewer. In this paper we conduct a follow up study investigating the possibility of Robot-Mediated Interviews with children that have various special needs. In a case study we investigated how 5 children with special needs aged 9 to 11 responded to the humanoid robot KASPAR compared to a human in an interview scenario. The measures used in this study include duration analysis of responses, detailed analysis of transcribed data, questionnaire responses and data from engagement coding. The main questions in the interviews varied in difficulty and focused on the theme of animals and pets. The results from quantitative data analysis reveal that the children interacted with KASPAR in a very similar manner to how they interacted with the human interviewer, providing both interviewers with similar information and amounts of information regardless of question difficulty. However qualitative analysis suggests that some children may have been more engaged with the robotic interviewer

Dogs and Technology: Our Most Beloved Companions in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century America

Since the suburban rush and steep rise in household technological devices in the mid-twentieth century, Americans have drawn apart from each other, a shift that has coincided with a rise in both dog ownership and the adoption of handheld mobile devices. This paper argues that these phenomena, which are both ubiquitous and intimate in many American households, reflect one of the most basic and static human needs: the need for emotional connection. Furthermore, it is the unique combination of canine and digital elements that replace human-to-human social networks; networks that were once both literally and figuratively tightly drawn. In the plainest terms, handheld devices endow people with powers of digital communication, thereby infolding them into a cybernetic social network. Meanwhile, it falls to dogs to provide a physical embodiment of a more immediate and tactile connection. In the most complicated terms, the human/digital/canine relationship in its many iterations is fraught with seemingly contradictory nuances, surprising connections, and theoretically diverse approaches. Drawing from a wide base of existing research and literature, both in the realm of human/technological and human/canine relationships, this paper seeks to draw new conclusions about how we interact with our devices and our dogs and what this might say about who we are

인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단과 추론

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 생활과학대학 아동가족학과, 2017. 8. 이순형.이 연구는 경계선적 대상에 대한 전조작기 유아의 생명현상 판단과 추론이 유아의 연령과 경계선적 대상의 속성에 따라 차이가 있는지 검토하고, 경계선적 대상의 속성 또는 유아의 생명현상 추론이 생명현상 판단에 영향을 미치는지를 규명하고자 하였다. 이를 통해 이 연구는 유아의 생물개념 발달양상과 생명현상 판단에 영향을 미치는 요인을 밝히고자 하였다. 서울과 경기의 중류층 거주 지역 소재 어린이집 3곳과 유치원 1곳에서 3, 4, 5세 유아 총 120명을 연구대상으로 선정하였다. 연구대상 유아는 생명현상 판단, 판단근거, 추론 과제를 수행하였다. 수집된 자료는 SPSS 프로그램에서 평균, 표준편차, 카이제곱검정, 피셔의 정확검정, 다중응답 교차분석, 반복측정변량분석, F검정, 이항 로지스틱 회귀분석을 이용하여 통계처리 하였다. 이 연구의 주요 결과는 다음의 여섯 가지이다. 첫째, 속성이 다른 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단은 연령에 따라 차이가 있었다. 연령이 높은 집단의 유아가 연령이 낮은 집단의 유아보다 경계선적 대상이 살아있다고 판단하는 경우가 적게 나타났다. 또한 로봇의 유형에 따라 유아의 생명현상 판단에 차이가 나타났다. 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 모두 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R4)의 경우 전체 연령 유아 모두 로봇이 살아있다고 판단한 경우가 많았다. 생물학적 속성이나 심리적 속성 중 한 가지만 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R2, R3)에 대해서는 3세가 4, 5세 유아보다 로봇이 살아있다고 판단하는 경우가 많았다. 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 모두 나타나지 않는 인간형 지능로봇(R1)의 경우 4, 5세 유아는 로봇이 살아있지 않다고 판단한 경우가 많았지만 3세 유아는 로봇을 생명이 있는 존재라고 판단하는 경우가 많았다. 둘째, 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 3, 4, 5세 유아의 생명현상 판단근거는 연령에 따라 차이가 있었다. 3세 유아의 판단근거는 불분명하였지만 4, 5세 유아는 생물학적 속성을 근거로 생명현상을 판단하였다. 특히 5세 유아는 3, 4세 유아와 비교했을 때 심리적 속성도 판단근거로 사용한 경우가 많았다. 4, 5세 유아의 생명현상 판단근거는 로봇의 유형에 따라 차이가 있었다. 인간형 지능로봇이 보이는 속성이 많아지면 4, 5세 유아는 지각적 특성뿐만 아니라 생물의 본질적 특성을 판단 근거로 사용하며, 심리적 속성도 고려하여 생명현상을 판단하였다. 셋째, 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 추론 중 생물현상추론은 연령과 로봇의 유형에 따라 유의한 차이가 있었다. 3세 유아는 다른 연령보다 유의하게 높은 수준으로 로봇에게 생물현상이 있다고 추론하였다. 반면 5세 유아는 다른 연령보다 로봇에게 생물현상이 나타나지 않는다고 추론하였다. 로봇의 유형에 따른 생물현상추론 양상의 차이도 유의하였다. 유아는 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 나타나지 않는 인간형 지능로봇(R1)보다 생물학적 속성 또는 심리적 속성이 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R3, R2)이 생물현상을 더 많이 가지고 있다고 추론하였다. 그리고 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 모두 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R4)에게 생물현상이 가장 많이 나타난다고 추론하였다. 넷째, 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 추론 중 심리현상추론은 연령과 로봇의 유형에 따라 유의한 차이가 있었다. 3세 유아가 4, 5세 유아보다 유의하게 높은 수준으로 로봇에게 심리현상이 있다고 추론하였고, 4, 5세 유아의 심리현상추론은 유의한 차이가 나타나지 않았다. 인간형 지능로봇에게 심리적 속성이 나타나는지에 따라 유아의 심리현상추론은 유의한 차이가 있었다. 유아는 심리적 속성이 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R2, R4)에게 그렇지 않은 로봇(R1, R3)보다 더 높은 수준으로 심리현상이 있다고 추론하였다. 심리현상추론에서 연령과 로봇의 유형 간에 유의한 상호작용 효과가 나타났다. 4세 유아는 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 모두 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R4), 심리적 속성만 가지고 있는 인간형 지능로봇(R2) 순으로 심리현상이 많이 나타난다고 추론하였다. 5세 유아의 심리현상추론은 속성이 다른 네 가지 인간형 지능로봇에서 모두 유의한 차이가 나타났다. 5세 유아는 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 모두 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R4), 심리적 속성만 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R2), 생물학적 속성만 나타나는 인간형 지능로봇(R3), 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성이 모두 나타나지 않는 인간형 지능로봇(R1) 순으로 심리현상이 많이 나타난다고 추론하였다. 다섯째, 경계선적 대상의 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성은 유아의 생명현상 판단에 영향을 미치는 요인이었고, 연령에 따라 경계선적 대상의 속성이 생명현상 판단에 미치는 영향이 달랐다. 3세 유아는 경계선적 대상의 속성과 상관없이 경계선적 대상을 살아있는 존재로 판단하였다. 4세 유아는 생물학적 속성이 나타나는 경우, 5세 유아는 심리적 속성이 나타나는 경우 경계선적 대상에게 생명현상이 있다고 판단할 가능성이 높아졌다. 여섯째, 경계선적 대상에 대한 유아의 생물현상추론과 심리현상추론은 유아의 생명현상 판단에 영향을 미치며, 연령에 따라 생명현상 추론이 생명현상 판단에 미치는 영향이 달랐다. 3세 유아는 생물현상추론 점수가 높을수록, 4, 5세 유아는 심리현상추론 점수가 높을수록 경계선적 대상에게 생명현상이 있다고 판단할 가능성이 높아졌다. 이 연구는 경계선적 대상에 대한 3, 4, 5세 유아의 생명현상 판단과 추론이 연령 및 경계선적 대상의 속성에 따라 차이가 있음을 밝혔다. 그리고 경계선적 대상에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단은 경계선적 대상의 생물학적 속성과 심리적 속성의 영향을 받음을 확인하였다. 마지막으로 유아의 생물현상추론과 심리현상추론이 생명현상 판단에 영향을 미침을 밝혔다.Ⅰ 문제 제기 1 Ⅱ. 이론적 배경 및 선행연구 고찰 8 1. 유아의 생명현상 개념발달 이론 8 1) 구성주의 관점에서의 개념발달단계론 8 2) 생득주의 관점에서의 개념발달 이론 11 2. 유아의 생명현상 판단과 추론의 발달 13 1) 유아의 생명현상 판단의 발달 14 2) 유아의 생명현상 추론의 발달 17 3. 대상의 속성과 유아의 생명현상 판단 및 추론 19 1) 생물학적 속성과 생명현상 판단 및 추론 19 2) 심리적 속성과 생명현상 판단 및 추론 21 4. 경계선적 대상에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단과 추론의 관계 25 Ⅲ. 연구문제와 용어의 정의 31 1. 연구문제 31 2. 용어의 정의 33 Ⅳ. 연구방법 및 절차 35 1. 연구대상 35 2. 연구도구 37 3. 연구절차 52 1) 예비 조사 52 2) 본 조사 57 4. 자료분석 59 Ⅴ. 결과 및 해석 61 1. 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단 및 판단근거 61 1) 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단 61 2) 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단근거 67 2. 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 추론 72 1) 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생물현상추론 72 2) 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 심리현상추론 82 3. 인간형 지능로봇의 속성이 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 판단에 미치는 상대적 영향 94 4. 인간형 지능로봇에 대한 유아의 생명현상 추론이 생명현상 판단에 미치는 상대적 영향 98 Ⅵ. 결론 및 제언 102 1. 결론 및 논의 102 2. 의의 및 제언 111 참고문헌 115 부록 127 Abstract 137Docto

Robot-Mediated Interviews: a Robotic Intermediary for Facilitating Communication with Children

Robots have been used in a variety of education, therapy or entertainment contexts. This thesis introduces the novel application of using humanoid robots for Robot-Mediated Interviews (RMIs). In the initial stages of this research it was necessary to first establish as a baseline if children would respond to a robot in an interview setting, therefore the first study compared how children responded to a robot and a human in an interview setting. Following this successful initial investigation, the second study expanded on this research by examining how children would respond to different types and difficulty of questions from a robot compared to a human interviewer. Building on these studies, the third study investigated how a RMI approach would work for children with special needs. Following the positive results from the three studies indicating that a RMI approach may have some potential, three separate user panel sessions were organised with user groups that have expertise in working with children and for whom the system would be potentially useful in their daily work. The panel sessions were designed to gather feedback on the previous studies and outline a set of requirements to make a RMI system feasible for real world users. The feedback and requirements from the user groups were considered and implemented in the system before conducting a final field trial of the system with a potential real world user. The results of the studies in this research reveal that the children generally interacted with KASPAR in a very similar to how they interacted with a human interviewer regardless of question type or difficulty. The feedback gathered from experts working with children suggested that the three most important and desirable features of a RMI system were: reliability, flexibility and ease of use. The feedback from the experts also indicated that a RMI system would most likely be used with children with special needs. The final field trial with 10 children and a potential real world user illustrated that a RMI system could potentially be used effectively outside of a research context, with all of the children in the trial responding to the robot. Feedback from the educational psychologist testing the system would suggest that a RMI approach could have real world implications if the system were developed further

How play moves us: Toys, technologies, and mobility in a digital world

The 21st century has been described as the Century of Play. The change in current play is particularly noticeable when looking at technological developments. This thesis deals with the technologization, digitalization, and connectedness of play between 2010–2020. The research explores forms of contemporary play, playthings, and players in a time when digitalization and connectedness have extended to various tools and realms of play—devices, toys, games, apps, and mediated playful environments. At the heart of the research are playthings and technologies conceptualized here as play machines, players using these tools within their communities and contexts, and, due to technological change, play research that increasingly expands into digital and networked cultures. Interactive digital devices have made play ubiquitous, and this includes play activities related to toys, mobile technologies, digital cameras, smartphones, digital toys, social media, and social robotics. The purpose of the thesis is to increase the understanding of what the rapid technologization of play, or what is conceptualized in the thesis as the digital leap of play, means in terms of mobilizing the players physically, cognitively, and emotionally. The thesis opens up prospects for technology-enriched play by presenting a range of empirical studies interested in the mobilization tendencies of current digital devices, toys, and connected media cultures that inform and inspire contemporary play and players of different ages as a form of digital culture that unites players and generations. The assumption is that digital technology connected to modern play experiences can move players in physical, cognitive, and emotional terms. Through six qualitative case studies, the thesis proposes to answer the central question: “How has play moved human players of the Western world in 2010–2020 in terms of physical, cognitive, and emotional mobility/movement?” The sub-question inquires what kinds of digital play are encountered in interactions of people of different ages as part of technologically enhanced leisure, learning, and environments where play is increasingly happening with and through machines and social media platforms by asking: “How are the acts of play realized in each instance of digital play through technology use, and what are the functions of the play for the players in each study?” The thesis seeks to understand the nature and various aspects of the digital transformation of play and balance the prevailing negative assumptions with more positive and optimistic views on the effect of technology-oriented play on the lives of players of different ages. The scholarly contribution of the thesis is to generate new play knowledge: The publications included in the thesis highlight various play patterns and practices among children of preschool age, adults, and seniors who engage in digital play through the use of digital devices or digital toys, either solitarily or socially, as part of intergenerational play. The findings of the thesis illustrate how changes in the ecosystem of play (primarily made possible by developing mobile technology and social media) are linked to the opportunities for players to engage in creative play activities, their documentation, and their social sharing. The connections of evolving digital technology (for example, digital toys, social media networking, and social robotics) to play are diverse; mobile devices with and without screens are used as an extension of play to enrich the experiences and outcomes of play and to empower the players by allowing them to showcase their imagination, creativity, and ability to connect with peers and other player communities. The thesis concludes that contemporary technology embodied in digital devices and Internet-connected playthings as the play machines of 2010–2020 allows for the expansion of play into human and toy interactions that non-technological playthings would not support. Technological development thus expands the historical, digital-material, and narrative dimensions of play. Social, technology-supported play triggers cultural processes that also support intergenerational interaction in play. Consequently, this thesis suggests that 1) digital technology is a driver for societal changes that affect play, 2) digital technology is a mobilizer of players in a physical, cognitive, emotional, and social sense, and 3) digital technology is an enabling, empowering, and enriching resource for contemporary digital play

Determining the effect of human cognitive biases in social robots for human-robotm interactions

The research presented in this thesis describes a model for aiding human-robot interactions based on the principle of showing behaviours which are created based on 'human' cognitive biases by a robot in human-robot interactions. The aim of this work is to study how cognitive biases can affect human-robot interactions in the long term. Currently, most human-robot interactions are based on a set of well-ordered and structured rules, which repeat regardless of the person or social situation. This trend tends to provide an unrealistic interaction, which can make difficult for humans to relate ‘naturally’ with the social robot after a number of relations. The main focus of these interactions is that the social robot shows a very structured set of behaviours and, as such, acts unnaturally and mechanical in terms of social interactions. On the other hand, fallible behaviours (e.g. forgetfulness, inability to understand other’ emotions, bragging, blaming others) are common behaviours in humans and can be seen in regular social interactions. Some of these fallible behaviours are caused by the various cognitive biases. Researchers studied and developed various humanlike skills (e.g. personality, emotions expressions, traits) in social robots to make their behaviours more humanlike, and as a result, social robots can perform various humanlike actions, such as walking, talking, gazing or emotional expression. But common human behaviours such as forgetfulness, inability to understand other emotions, bragging or blaming are not present in the current social robots; such behaviours which exist and influence people have not been explored in social robots. The study presented in this thesis developed five cognitive biases in three different robots in four separate experiments to understand the influences of such cognitive biases in human–robot interactions. The results show that participants initially liked to interact with the robot with cognitive biased behaviours more than the robot without such behaviours. In my first two experiments, the robots (e.g., ERWIN, MyKeepon) interacted with the participants using a single bias (i.e., misattribution and empathy gap) cognitive biases accordingly, and participants enjoyed the interactions using such bias effects: for example, forgetfulness, source confusions, always showing exaggerated happiness or sadness and so on in the robots. In my later experiments, participants interacted with the robot (e.g., MARC) three times, with a time interval between two interactions, and results show that the likeness the interactions where the robot shows biased behaviours decreases less than the interactions where the robot did not show any biased behaviours. In the current thesis, I describe the investigations of these traits of forgetfulness, the inability to understand others’ emotions, and bragging and blaming behaviours, which are influenced by cognitive biases, and I also analyse people’s responses to robots displaying such biased behaviours in human–robot interactions

Designing technology for young children: guidelines grounded in a literature investigation on child development and children's technology

This thesis is about the design of technology for children from five to eight years of age. The majority of available guidelines and principles for design or evaluation of technology support the design of products aimed at adults. The limited guidelines available for design of young children's technology do not focus sufficiently on age-related requirements or they offer high-level advice that is only useful in the planning stages of design. Working from the assumption that knowledge available in the literature provides sufficient information to support this process, my aim with this study was to demonstrate how a dependable and useful set of guidelines for the design of technology for children aged five to eight years could be derived from an existing body of knowledge. Development of the guidelines firstly involved research into the psychological theories of children's development to identify those elements of development and the characteristics of children that may have bearing on children's use of technology. Secondly, the literature on children's development of specific skills such as literacy and mathematics was investigated. The available literature on young children's use of technology was studied next and, finally, the applicability of existing design guidelines and principles for children's products evaluated. Throughout this literature investigation the researcher gathered design-relevant factors that could potentially become design guidelines. Using qualitative data analysis techniques, more than five hundred such data elements were systematically coded, processed, analysed and categorised. The result is three hundred and fifty guidelines organised into a framework of six categories and twenty-six subcategories that integrates the relevant theoretical fields and provides practical support for designers. To demonstrate the credibility and usefulness of the emerging guidelines they were used to do an evaluation and re-design of an existing product aimed at the target group. The thesis reports in detail on the different stages of the research, and systematically takes the reader through the process of deriving guidelines from existing theory and research findings, and integrating them into a useful framework.School of ComputingPhD. (Computer Science