Learning Word Groundings from Humans Facilitated by Robot Emotional Displays

Abstract

In working towards accomplishing a humanlevel acquisition and understanding of language, a robot must meet two requirements: the ability to learn words from interactions with its physical environment, and the ability to learn language from people in settings for language use, such as spoken dialogue. In a live interactive study, we test the hypothesis that emotional displays are a viable solution to the cold-start problem of how to communicate without relying on language the robot does not-indeed, cannot-yet know. We explain our modular system that can autonomously learn word groundings through interaction and show through a user study with 21 participants that emotional displays improve the quantity and quality of the inputs provided to the robot.