Robot Design for Young Children

社交机器人正在出现在有幼儿的环境中，如托儿所、学校、医院和家庭，在那里它们被设计成使用类似人类的社交技术。新的研究强调，这些儿童与机器人的互动往往会导致负面和不适当的互动，例如欺凌或过度信任。我认为，这直接导致机器人被设计为幼儿，没有该领域的工具或知识，如何适当地这样做;最近的研究结果表明，机器人需要专门为儿童设计，但我们不知道如何。作为一个领域，我们需要开发专门为儿童设计的机器人指导方针和行为。我工作的长期目标是推动该领域的发展，知道如何为幼儿设计机器人。通过这项工作，我将开发规范性框架，以指导家庭和学校使用的机器人与幼儿的设计和互动行为。我的工作使用新颖的方法来评估儿童与学龄前儿童的互动，这是人机交互和人机交互中一个基本上未被充分研究的用户群。科学方法我采用标准的人机交互和人机交互方法，在需要的地方从心理学，社会学和语言学。我将（a）与幼儿一起举办以用户为中心的共同设计研讨会，以帮助确保机器人设计符合期望和机器人的概念模型，（B）进行一系列实验室和现场实验，以制定儿童与机器人的期望，互动和注意事项的框架，帮助更好地了解幼儿与机器人互动时我们可能期望的内容，并开发测量工具，以评估机器人行为的适当性，以及（c）开发和测试新的机器人行为，以便在家中和日托中心与儿童互动。具体而言，我将重点讨论以下组成部分：（1）交互的社会成分--诸如可爱性、友好性、信息共享等方面（2）逻辑要求--诸如麦克风放置、儿童专用语言、机器人能力、机器人错误等方面（3）交互的结果--诸如信任、友谊、有用性等方面，这是加拿大第一个（也是世界上为数不多的）研究如何为学龄前儿童设计交互式机器人技术的研究项目。通过我的工作，我将开发新的交互模式，并研究方法来研究它们，推动人机交互和人机交互领域的发展。我的研究还将提供必要的知识，以便能够实现对幼儿产生积极结果的机器人，防止目前可用的机器人所看到的短期（和潜在）长期负面发展结果。

Social robots are emerging into environments with young children, such as daycares, schools, hospitals, and homes, where they are designed to use human-like social techniques. Emerging research highlights that these child-robot interactions can surprisingly often lead to negative and inappropriate interactions, such as bullying or over-trust. I argue that this results directly from robots being designed for young children, without the field having the tools or knowledge of how to appropriately do so; recent findings demonstrate that robots need to be designed specifically for children, yet we do not know how. As a field we need to develop robot guidelines and behaviours that are specifically designed for children. The long-term goal of my work is to move the field forward in knowing how to design robots for young children. Through this work, I will develop prescriptive frameworks to guide design and interaction behaviours of robots for home and school use with young children. My work uses novel methods for assessing child-robot interaction with preschool-aged children, a largely understudied user group in Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction. Scientific approach I employ standard Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction methodology, drawing where needed from Psychology, Sociology, and Linguistics. I will (a) conduct user-centred and co-design workshops with young children to help ensure that robot designs match expectations and conceptual models of robots, (b) conduct a series of laboratory and field experiments to develop frameworks of children's expectations, interactions, and caveats with robots, helping to better understand what we might expect when young children interact with robots, and develop measurement tools to assess the appropriateness of robot behaviours, and (c) develop and test new robot behaviours for interaction with children at home and daycare. Specifically, I will focus on the following components: (1) Social Components of Interaction - aspects such as likability, friendliness, information sharing (2) Logistical Requirements - aspects such as microphone placement, child-specific language, robot abilities, robot errors (3) Outcomes of Interaction - aspects such as trust, friendship, usefulness, respect This research program will the first in Canada (and one of few in the world) that investigates how to design interactive robotic technologies for preschool-aged children. Through my work, I will develop new interaction paradigms, and research methodologies to investigate them, moving forward the fields of Human-Robot Interaction and Human-Computer Interaction. My research will also provide the necessary knowledge to be able to implement robots that lead to positive outcomes with young children, preventing the short- (and potentially) long-term negative developmental outcomes that are seen with currently available robots.