Children’s Evaluations of a Therapy Dog and Biomimetic Robot: Influences of Animistic Beliefs and Social Interaction

Abstract

Social robots are being used increasingly across a range of settings, including in the context of therapeutic interactions with children. While research has shown that interaction with live therapy dogs can be calming and enjoyable for children, it is currently unclear whether social robots can produce similar outcomes. In this study, 11–12-year old children completed a questionnaire about their biophilic beliefs and attitudes to dogs and robots before engaging in two separate free-play, non-goal directed, non-therapeutic sessions with an interactive biomimetic MiRo-E robot and a living therapy dog in a controlled setting. Behavioural observations of social interaction, initiation and reaction behaviours by the child and dog/robot showed that participants spent a similar amount of time engaging in positive social touch with the robot and the dog, but overall more time interacting with the robot. This may be because the robot was more responsive to the children’s initiation behaviours. In self-report, participants significantly preferred the session with the living dog. However, overall enjoyment was high and more positive emotions were reported following interaction with the robot. The more participants attributed mental attributes and animacy to the dog/robot, the more they enjoyed the interactions, demonstrating that participants’ animistic beliefs were an important factor in their evaluations. Levels of social interaction did not correlate with enjoyment, suggesting that the nature of the interaction was less important than pre-existing participant attitudes in producing reported positive outcomes. Although there were some differences in behaviour and evaluations, these preliminary results suggest that MiRo-E provides a useful comparison to therapy dogs and may be a suitable alternative for use in interventions with children.

Therapeutic engagement in robot‐assisted psychological interventions: A systematic review

“…The four remaining studies (Barber et al, 2020; Kahn et al, 2006; Loi et al, 2018; Moerman & Jansens, 2020) tested residential care facility staff ( N = 24) in Australia (Loi et al, 2018); typically developing children ( N = 80), aged from 2.83 to 6.17 years, in the United States (Kahn et al, 2006); students from a mainstream secondary school ( N = 34), with a mean age of 11.64 years, in the United Kingdom (Barber et al, 2020); and children on paediatric wards ( N = 9), aged between 4 and 13 years, in the Netherlands (Moerman & Jansens, 2020). See Table 1 for all study characteristics.…”

“…NeCoRO, a robotic cat (N = 1), possesses artificial intelligence aside from common mechanical components, allowing for a range of responses such as vocalizations of purring or meowing as well as non-verbal behaviours such as tail wagging and head turning (Libin & Cohen-Mansfield, 2004;Shibata et al, 1999). MiRo-E, a mammal-like biomimetic robot that looks like a long-eared dog (N = 1), has tactile, auditory and visual sensors and moves freely, indicating 'mood' by wagging its tail, producing noises, and changing the light colour on its body panels (Barber et al, 2020). Keepon, a yellow robotic toy in the shape of a snowman (N = 1), possesses small gimbals that allow its body to be manipulated and can be controlled by an operator or automatically (Kozima et al, 2009).…”

“…Of the four other studies, three studies indicated positive engagement with robots (Barber et al, 2020;Loi et al, 2018;Moerman & Jansens, 2020) and one study reported mixed findings (Kahn et al, 2006). One study recruited residential care facility staff members and reported that subjective ratings of acceptability in using the assistive humanoid robot Betty to engage and entertain residents had significantly increased post-intervention in comparison to preintervention (Loi et al, 2018).…”

Therapy Dog Welfare Revisited: A Review of the Literature

“…Biomimetic Robotic Dogs, while not a topic within this review, have been discussed in a number of recent publications. Barber et al found that robotic dogs may be just as effective and a suitable replacement in certain situations with therapeutic benefits for children and young people [39]. The children spent a comparable amount of time stroking both the real-life dog and the robot and spent more time interacting with the robot, even though the children reported they significantly preferred the sessions with the living dog.…”

A Robot That Encourages Self-Disclosure to Reduce Anger Mood

“…A small creature-like robot, Keepon, was developed for both human-robot interaction and robot-therapy purposes by non-verbal interaction [29]. Another research work compared the therapeutic effects of a therapy dog and a robot dog and concluded that a robot device might support children [30]. However, these studies focused less on conversational interaction and dialogue management systems.…”