Fumihide Tanaka

Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center

A state-of-the-art social robot was immersed in a classroom of toddlers for >5 months. The quality of the interaction between children and robots improved steadily for 27 sessions, quickly deteriorated for 15 sessions when the robot was reprogrammed to behave in a predictable manner, and improved in the last three sessions when the robot displayed again its full behavioral repertoire. Initially, the children treated the robot very differently than the way they treated each other. By the last sessions, 5 months later, they treated the robot as a peer rather than as a toy. Results indicate that current robot technology is surprisingly close to achieving autonomous bonding and socialization with human toddlers for sustained periods of time and that it could have great potential in educational settings assisting teachers and enriching the classroom environment.

Children teach a care-receiving robot to promote their learning: field experiments in a classroom for vocabulary learning

In contrast to conventional teaching agents (including robots) that were designed to play the role of human teachers or caregivers, we propose the opposite scenario in which robots receive instruction or care from children. We hypothesize that by using this care-receiving robot, we may construct a new educational framework whose goal is to promote childrens spontaneous learning by teaching through their teaching the robot. In this paper, we describe the introduction of a care-receiving robot into a classroom at an English language school for Japanese children (3--6 years of age) and then conduct an experiment to evaluate if the care-receiving robot can promote their learning using English verbs. The results suggest that the idea of a care-receiving robot is feasible and that the robot can help children learn new English verbs efficiently. In addition, we report on investigations into several forms of teaching performed by children, which were revealed through observations of the children, parent interviews, and other useful knowledge. These can be used to improve the design of care-receiving robots for educational purposes.

Daily HRI evaluation at a classroom environment: reports from dance interaction experiments

The design and development of social robots that interact and assist people in daily life requires moving into unconstrained daily-life environments. This presents unexplored methodological challenges to robotic researchers. Is it possible, for example, to perform useful experiments in the uncontrolled conditions of everyday life environments? How long do these studies need to be to provide reliable results? What evaluations methods can be used?In this paper we present preliminary results on a study designed to evaluate an algorithm for social robots in relatively uncontrolled, daily life conditions. The study was conducted as part of the RUBI project, whose goal is to design and develop social robots by immersion in the environment in which the robots are supposed to operate. First we found that in spite of the relative chaotic conditions and lack of control existing in the daily activities of a child-care center, it is possible to perform experiments in a relatively short period of time and with reliable results. We found that continuous audience response methods borrowed from marketing research provided good inter-observer reliabilities, in the order of 70%, and temporal resolution (the cut-off frequency is in the order of 1 cycle per minute) at low cost (evaluation is performed continuously in real time). We also experimented with objective behavioral descriptions, like tracking childrens movement across a room. These approaches complemented each other and provided a useful picture of the temporal dynamics of the child-robot interaction, allowing us to gather baseline data for evaluating future systems. Finally, we also touch the ongoing study of behavior analysis through 3 months long-term child-robot interaction.

When a robot is social: Spatial arrangements and multimodal semiotic engagement in the practice of social robotics

Social roboticists design their robots to function as social agents in interaction with humans and other robots. Although we do not deny that the robot’s design features are crucial for attaining this aim, we point to the relevance of spatial organization and coordination between the robot and the humans who interact with it. We recover these interactions through an observational study of a social robotics laboratory and examine them by applying a multimodal interactional analysis to two moments of robotics practice. We describe the vital role of roboticists and of the group of preverbal infants, who are involved in a robot’s design activity, and we argue that the robot’s social character is intrinsically related to the subtleties of human interactional moves in laboratories of social robotics. This human involvement in the robot’s social agency is not simply controlled by individual will. Instead, the human–machine couplings are demanded by the situational dynamics in which the robot is lodged.

The RUBI/QRIO Project: Origins, Principles, and First Steps

Computers are already powerful enough to sustain useful robots that interact and assist humans in every-day life. However progress requires a scientific shakedown in goals and methods not unlike the cognitive revolution that occurred 40 years ago. The document presents the origin and early steps of the RUBI/QRIO project, in which two humanoid robots, RUBI and QRIO, are being brought to an early childhood education center on a daily bases for a period of time of at least one year. The goal of the RUBI/QRIO project is to accelerate progress on everyday life interactive robots by addressing the problem at multiple levels, including the development of new scientific methods, formal approaches, and scientific agenda. The current focus of the project is on educational environments, exploring the ways in which this technology could be used to assist teachers and enrich the educational experiences of children. We describe the origins, philosophy and first steps of the project, which included immersion of the researchers in the Early Childhood Education Center at UCSD, development of a social robot prototype named RUBI, and daily field studies with RUBI and QRIO, a prototype humanoid developed by Sony

Dance interaction with QRIO: a case study for non-boring interaction by using an entrainment ensemble model

This work introduces our new project, dance interaction, where we investigate design methodology or principles for realizing long-term interaction between a human and a robot. By exploiting the powerful hardware of an entertainment robot QRIO, we tackle this pretty hard problem by a repeated try and test approach. As the first attempt, we try designing by an entrainment ensemble model that to be presented in this paper. Though studies are just starting and have not matured yet, current progress and prospects for the near future are addressed.

Developing dance interaction between QRIO and toddlers in a classroom environment: plans for the first steps

This paper introduces the early stages of a study designed to understand the development of dance interactions between QRIO and toddlers in a classroom environment. The study is part of a project to explore the potential use of interactive robots as instructional tools in education. After 3 months observation period, we are starting the experiment. The experimental environment, component technologies, and plans for evaluating interaction are described.

Pepper learns together with children: Development of an educational application

An educational use of Pepper, a personal robot that was developed by SoftBank Robotics Corp. and Aldebaran Robotics SAS, is described. Applying the two concepts of care-receiving robot (CRR) and total physical response (TPR) into the design of an educational application using Pepper, we offer a scenario in which children learn together with Pepper at their home environments from a human teacher who gives a lesson from a remote classroom. This paper is a case report that explains the developmental process of the application that contains three educational programs that children can select in interacting with Pepper. Feedbacks and knowledge obtained from test trials are also described.

Plans for Developing Real-time Dance Interaction between QRIO and Toddlers in a Classroom Environment

This paper introduces the early stages of a study designed to understand the development of dance interactions between QRIO and toddlers in a classroom environment. The study is part of a project to explore the potential use of interactive robots as instructional tools in education. After 3 months observation period, we are starting the experiment. After explaining the experimental environment, component technologies used in it are described: an interactive dance with visual feedback, exploiting the active detection of contingency and robotic emotion expression

The use of robots in early education: A scenario based on ethical consideration

In this position paper, we will raise some critical issues on applying robotics technologies into the educational environment. The series of discussions are based on our previous study on toddlers - robots interaction at a nursery school. In reaction to the notice warning of its potential risk, we will present a scenario in which robots are employed with less ethical concern and more educational contribution.