Toddlers Bond With Robot, Study Shows

Stefan Lovgren in Los Angeles
for National Geographic News

November 5, 2007

Will the robot revolution begin in nursery school?

Researchers introduced a state-of-the-art social robot into a classroom of 18- to 24-month-olds for five months as a way of studying human-robot interactions.

The children not only came to accept the robot but treated it as they would a human buddy—hugging it and helping it—a new study says.

"The results imply that current robot technology is surprisingly close to achieving autonomous bonding and socialization with human toddlers," said Fumihide Tanaka, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

The findings will be published tomorrow in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(Related: "Robot Code of Ethics to Prevent Android Abuse, Protect Humans" [March 16, 2007].)

Storytellers

The development of robots that interact socially with people has been difficult to achieve, experts say, partly because such interactions are hard to study.

"To my knowledge, this is the first long-term study of this sort," said Ronald Arkin, a roboticist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was not involved with the study.

"It is groundbreaking … and helps to forward human-robot interaction studies significantly," he said.

The most successful robots so far have been storytellers, but they have only been able to hold human interest for a limited time.

For the new study, researchers introduced a toddler-size humanoid robot into a classroom at a UCSD childhood education center. One of the QRIO series of robots, the 23-inch-tall (58-centimeter-tall) machine was originally developed by Sony.

Children of toddler age were chosen because they have no preconceived notions of robots, said Tanaka, the lead researcher, who also works for Sony.

The researchers sent instructions about every two minutes to the robot to do things like giggle, dance, sit down, or walk in a certain direction.

The 45 sessions were videotaped, and interactions between toddlers and the robot were later analyzed.

Importance of Touch

The results showed that the quality of those interactions improved steadily over 27 sessions. The interactions deteriorated quickly over the next 15 sessions, when the robot was reprogrammed to behave in a more limited, predictable manner.

Finally, the human-robot relations improved in the last three sessions, after the robot had been reprogrammed to display its full range of behaviors.

"Initially the children treated the robot very differently than the way they treated each other," Tanaka said.

"But by the end they treated the robot as a peer rather than a toy."

Early in the study some children cried when QRIO fell. But a month into the study, the toddlers helped QRIO stand up by pushing its back or pulling its hands.

The most important aspect of interaction was touch, Tanaka said. At first the toddlers would touch the robot on its face, but later on they would touch only on its hands and arms, like they would with other humans.

Another robotlike toy named Robby, which resembled QRIO but did not move, was used as a control toy in the study.

While hugging of QRIO increased, hugging of Robby decreased throughout the study.

Furthermore, when QRIO laid down on the floor as its batteries ran down, a toddler would put a blanket over his silver-colored "friend" and say "night-night."

Hiroshi Ishiguro is a robotics expert at Osaka University in Japan.

"I think this paper is the first one that has clearly reported the possibilities of small, almost autonomous humanoid
robots for toddlers," said Ishiguro, who was not involved with the study but has collaborated with its authors on other projects.

Ethical Concerns

The researchers are now developing autonomous robots for the toddler classroom.

"It could have great potential in educational settings assisting teachers and enriching the classroom environment," Tanaka said.

Arkin, the Georgia Tech roboticist, said he was not surprised by the affection showed by the toddlers toward the robot.

"Humans have a tremendous propensity to bond with artifacts with any or all sort, whether it be a car, a doll, or a robot," he said.

But he also cautioned that researchers don't yet understand the consequences of increased human-robot interaction.

"Just studying how robots and humans work together can give us insight into whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for society," Akrin said.

"What are the consequences of introducing a robot artifact into a cadre of children? How will that enhance, or potentially interfere with, their social development?

"It might make life easier for the teacher, but we really don't understand the long-term impact of having a robot as a childhood friend, do we?"

Free Email News Updates
Sign up for our Inside National Geographic newsletter. Every two weeks we'll send you our top stories and pictures (see sample).