Towards Long-Term Social Child-Robot Interaction: Using Multi-Activity Switching to Engage Young Users
 
Towards Long-Term Social Child-Robot Interaction: Using Multi-Activity Switching to Engage Young Users 
 
Alexandre Coninx, Alexandre Coninx, Paul Baxter, Paul Baxter, Elettra Oleari, Elettra Oleari, Sara Bellini, Sara Bellini, Bert Bierman, Bert Bierman, Olivier Blanson, Olivier Blanson, Lola Canamero, Lola Canamero, Piero Cosi, Piero Cosi, Valentin Enescu, Valentin Enescu, Raquel Ros Espinoza, Raquel Ros Espinoza, Antoine Hiolle, Antoine Hiolle, Remi Humbert, Remi Humbert, Bernd Kiefer, Bernd Kiefer, Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova, Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova, Rosmarijn Looije, Rosmarijn Looije, Marco Mosconi, Marco Mosconi, Mark Neerincx, Mark Neerincx, Giulio Paci, Giulio Paci, Georgios Patsis, Georgios Patsis, Clara Pozzi, Clara Pozzi, Francesca Sacchitelli, Francesca Sacchitelli, Hichem Sahli, Hichem Sahli, Alberto Sanna, Alberto Sanna, Giacomo Sommavilla, Giacomo Sommavilla, Fabio Tesser, Fabio Tesser, Yiannis Demiris, Yiannis Demiris, Tony Belpaeme, Tony Belpaeme
 
Abstract 

Social robots have the potential to provide support in a number of practical domains, such as learning and behaviour change. This potential is particularly relevant for children, who have proven receptive to interactions with social robots. To reach learning and therapeutic goals, a number of issues need to be investigated, notably the design of an effective child-robot interaction (cHRI) to ensure the child remains engaged in the relationship and that educational goals are met. Typically, current cHRI research experiments focus on a single type of interaction activity (e.g. a game). However, these can suffer from a lack of adaptation to the child, or from an increasingly repetitive nature of the activity and interaction. In this paper, we motivate and propose a practicable solution to this issue: an adaptive robot able to switch between multiple activities within single interactions. We describe a system that embodies this idea, and present a case study in which diabetic children collaboratively learn with the robot about various aspects of managing their condition. We demonstrate the ability of our system to induce a varied interaction and show the potential of this approach both as an educational tool and as a research method for long-term cHRI.