Modelling empathic behaviour in a robotic game companion for children: an ethnographic study in real-world settings

Authors:
Iolanda Leite;Ginevra Castellano;André Pereira;Carlos Martinho;Ana Paiva
Affiliations:
INESC-ID and IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Oeiras, Portugal;University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom;INESC-ID and IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Oeiras, Portugal;INESC-ID and IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Oeiras, Portugal;INESC-ID and IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Oeiras, Portugal
Venue:
HRI '12 Proceedings of the seventh annual ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-Robot Interaction
Year:
2012

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Abstract

The idea of autonomous social robots capable of assisting us in our daily lives is becoming more real every day. However, there are still many open issues regarding the social capabilities that those robots should have in order to make daily interactions with humans more natural. For example, the role of affective interactions is still unclear. This paper presents an ethnographic study conducted in an elementary school where 40 children interacted with a social robot capable of recognising and responding empathically to some of the children's affective states. The findings suggest that the robot's empathic behaviour affected positively how children perceived the robot. However, the empathic behaviours should be selected carefully, under the risk of having the opposite effect. The target application scenario and the particular preferences of children seem to influence the degree of empathy that social robots should be endowed with.