Expectation management in child-robot interaction

Mike Ligthart*, Olivier Blanson Henkemans, Koen Hindriks, Mark A. Neerincx

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Children are eager to anthropomorphize (ascribe human attributes to) social robots. As a consequence they expect a more unconstrained, substantive and useful interaction with the robot than is possible with the current state-of-the art. In this paper we reflect on several of our user studies and investigate the form and role of expectations in child-robot interaction. We have found that the effectiveness of the social assistance of the robot is negatively influenced by misaligned expectations. We propose three strategies that have to be worked out for the management of expectations in child-robot interaction: 1) be aware of and analyze children's expectations, 2) educate children, and 3) acknowledge robots are (perceived as) a new kind of 'living' entity besides humans and animals that we need to make responsible for managing expectations.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRO-MAN 2017 - 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages916-921
Number of pages6
Volume2017-January
ISBN (Electronic)9781538635186
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Dec 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2017 - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: 28 Aug 20171 Sept 2017

Conference

Conference26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2017
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period28/08/171/09/17

Funding

This work was performed for the Horizon2020 project ‘Personal Assistant for a Healthy Lifestyle’ (PAL). Grant nr. 643783-RIA 1M.E.U. Ligthart, K.V. Hindriks and M.A. Neerincx are with the Interactive Intelligence research group, Delft University of Technology, 2628CD Delft, The Netherlands m.e.u.ligthart@tudelft.nl 2O.A. Blason Henkemans and M.A. Neerincx are with The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), The Netherlands

FundersFunder number
Horizon2020

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