Interactive Humanoid Robots and Androids in Children's Lives

Abstract

This paper provides insight into how recent progress in robotics could affect children’s lives in the not-so-distant future. We describe two studies in which robots were presented to children in the context of their daily lives. The results of the first study, which was conducted in an elementary school with a mechanical-looking humanoid robot, showed that the robot affected children’s behaviors, feelings, and even their friendships. The second study is a case study in which children performed daily conversational tasks with a geminoid, a teleoperated android robot that resembles a living individual. The results showed that children gradually adapted to conversations with the geminoid and developed an awareness of the personality or presence of the person controlling the geminoid. These studies provide clues to the process of children’s adaptation to interactions with robots and particularly how they start treating robots as intelligent beings.