A Long-Term Study of Young Children's Rapport, Social Emulation, and Language Learning With a Peer-Like Robot Playmate in Preschool.
A Long-Term Study of Young Children's Rapport, Social Emulation, and Language Learning With a Peer-Like Robot Playmate in Preschool.
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DOI：
10.3389/frobt.2019.00081
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发表时间：
2019
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Breazeal C
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kory-Westlund JM;Breazeal C
先前的研究已经证明了孩子的同龄人对他们的学习和发展的重要性。特别是，同伴互动，特别是与更先进的同龄人，可以促进学龄前儿童的语言发展。在本文中，我们探讨了一个因素，可能会调节儿童的语言学习与同龄人一样的社会机器人：融洽。我们探索学龄前儿童的学习，融洽，和模仿机器人的语言在讲故事的干预之间的联系。我们在一所幼儿园进行了一项长期的实地研究，其中有17名4-6岁的儿童。孩子们在两个月内与社交机器人玩了8次讲故事的游戏。对于一些儿童，机器人将其故事的水平与儿童的语言能力相匹配，充当稍微高级的同伴（匹配条件）;对于其他儿童，机器人不匹配故事水平（不匹配条件）。我们研究了儿童使用的目标词汇和机器人使用的关键短语，儿童的机器人的故事在他们自己的故事，和儿童的语言风格匹配（LSM的重叠功能词的使用和说话风格的措施与融洽和关系），看看他们是否反映了机器人随着时间的推移。我们发现，随着时间的推移，孩子们不仅更多地模仿机器人，而且在讲故事时模仿机器人短语的孩子在词汇后测中得分更高。LSM分数较高的儿童更有可能在他们的故事中模仿机器人的内容词。此外，机器人在匹配条件下的个性化导致儿童的仿真和他们的LSM分数增加。总之，这些结果表明，首先，与更先进的同龄人互动对儿童有益，其次，儿童对机器人语言的模仿可能与他们的融洽关系和学习有关。这是第一项实证研究，支持融洽关系可能是儿童同伴学习的调节因素，此外，社交机器人可以通过利用这种洞察力作为语言发展的有效干预。
Prior research has demonstrated the importance of children's peers for their learning and development. In particular, peer interaction, especially with more advanced peers, can enhance preschool children's language growth. In this paper, we explore one factor that may modulate children's language learning with a peer-like social robot: rapport. We explore connections between preschool children's learning, rapport, and emulation of the robot's language during a storytelling intervention. We performed a long-term field study in a preschool with 17 children aged 4–6 years. Children played a storytelling game with a social robot for 8 sessions over two months. For some children, the robot matched the level of its stories to the children's language ability, acting as a slightly more advanced peer (Matched condition); for the others, the robot did not match the story level (Unmatched condition). We examined children's use of target vocabulary words and key phrases used by the robot, children's emulation of the robot's stories during their own storytelling, and children's language style matching (LSM—a measure of overlap in function word use and speaking style associated with rapport and relationship) to see whether they mirrored the robot more over time. We found that not only did children emulate the robot more over time, but also, children who emulated more of the robot's phrases during storytelling scored higher on the vocabulary posttest. Children with higher LSM scores were more likely to emulate the robot's content words in their stories. Furthermore, the robot's personalization in the Matched condition led to increases in both children's emulation and their LSM scores. Together, these results suggest first, that interacting with a more advanced peer is beneficial for children, and second, that children's emulation of the robot's language may be related to their rapport and their learning. This is the first study to empirically support that rapport may be a modulating factor in children's peer learning, and furthermore, that a social robot can serve as an effective intervention for language development by leveraging this insight.