Unusual artifacts: Linking parents' STEM background and children's animacy judgments to parent–child play with robots

Abstract

Although prior work has investigated children's judgments of robots' animacy, we take a sociocultural perspective to extend this research by exploring how families' interactions with a robot and parents' STEM background relate to children's understanding of robots. We explored the social context of parent-child goal-directed play with an educational robot and asked whether children's judgments of the robot's animacy were predicted by (a) age, (b) parents' occupation (STEM, non-STEM), (c) parents' level of education, and (d) the complexity of communications with the robot. We recruited 72 parent-child dyads (3-6 years of age) at a children's museum to participate in a

Toward Family-Robot Interactions: A Family-Centered Framework in HRI

“…Eight toddlers refused to play with the robot in the playroom, while eleven toddlers interacted with the robot. The remote teleoperated system increased opportunities for grandparent-grandchild interactions and promoted the sharing of [1,20]; At Home Special Education and Family Bonding [6]; Family Co-Learning [2]; Family Dynamics [46] Robot Perceptions [43]; Robot Adoption in Long-Term [4,34,40]; Robot Acceptance [27,39,42] daily life. Motivated by these interactions, grandparents paid special attention to their appearance during video interactions.…”

“…For example, new members may join or leave the family system for various reasons (short-term changes: work, vacation, school; long-term changes: birth, death, marriage, divorce). From the literature review, we identified that several family members' characteristics play a significant role in shaping how family members perceive and engage with robots, these include: family routines [40]; parents' STEM backgrounds [43]; dual parent employment and parenting styles [39]; family resilience towards changes in children's health conditions [34]; the spectrum of children's diagnosis and parents physical presence [4]; children's hedonic, social, and utilitarian beliefs [27]; and parents' perceptions towards the agency, intelligence, and expressivity of robots [42].…”

“…The robot system considers the technical and interactive attributes of the robot itself, including its design, capabilities, and functions. We identified varying use cases of robots that have distinct impacts on family life, such as those designed for storytelling [20,42], play [1,40,43], learning [2,27], therapy [4,6], communication [34,46], and childcare [39]. Several robot characteristics may support interactions between family members, for example, robot's ability to convey emotion [6], hold multi-party interactions [20], assist with homework, chores [27], entertainment [40], help maintain long-distance connections [34], as well as its communication style [46], perceived intelligence and agency [42].…”

“…This system sets the stage for HRI interactions and shapes the nature of robot use within specific environments. Examples from our review include: robots in the home [2,6,20,40,46] or surveys for in-home use [39,42]; museums [43]; hospital [4]; or robots used in multiple contexts, between a playroom and non-co-located family members [1], a hospital and home [34], or classroom and home [27].…”

“…Family members are rarely active participants in interactions with robots, and typically serve as providers of consent or feedback. In recognition of this potential, a small but growing number of studies focus on robots designed with both the children and parents in mind (e.g., parent-child co-learning [2], parent-child storytelling [20], or parent-child goal-oriented play [43]). Still, understanding human-robot interaction within a broader family context is challenging, due to the limited applications of current robot technologies to autonomously maintain multi-party and long-term interactions in domestic settings.…”