In order to explore the impact of integrating a robot as a facilitator in a collaborative activity, we examined interpersonal distancing of children both with a human adult and a robot facilitator. Our scenario involves two children performing a collaborative learning activity, which included the writing of a word/letter on a tactile tablet. Based on the learning-by-teaching paradigm, one of the children acted as a teacher when the other acted as a learner. Our study involved 40 children between 6 and 8 years old, in two conditions(robot or human facilitator). The results suggest first that the child acting as a teacher feel more responsible when the facilitator is a robot, compared to a human ; they show then that the interaction between a (teacher) child and a robot facilitator can be characterized as being a reciprocity-based interaction, whereas a human presence fosters a compensation-based interaction.
Reference
- Detailed record: https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/229341?ln=en
- EPFL-CONF-229341
- doi:10.1109/ROMAN.2015.7333678