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Edited by James L. McClelland, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved September 27, 2007 (received for review August 17, 2007)
Abstract
A state-of-the-art social robot was immersed in a classroom of toddlers for >5 months. The quality of the interaction between children and robots improved steadily for 27 sessions, quickly deteriorated for 15 sessions when the robot was reprogrammed to behave in a predictable manner, and improved in the last three sessions when the robot displayed again its full behavioral repertoire. Initially, the children treated the robot very differently than the way they treated each other. By the last sessions, 5 months later, they treated the robot as a peer rather than as a toy. Results indicate that current robot technology is surprisingly close to achieving autonomous bonding and socialization with human toddlers for sustained periods of time and that it could have great potential in educational settings assisting teachers and enriching the classroom environment.
Footnotes
- ‡To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: boom{at}mplab.ucsd.edu
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Author contributions: F.T., A.C., and J.R.M. designed research; F.T., A.C., and J.R.M. performed research; F.T., A.C., and J.R.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; F.T. and J.R.M. analyzed data; and F.T., A.C., and J.R.M. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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↵ ¶ The 10-h barrier was one of the concepts that emerged from the discussions at the National Science Foundation's Animated Interfaces and Virtual Humans Workshop in Del Mar, California in April 2004.
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This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0707769104/DC1.
- Abbreviation:
- ECEC,
- Early Childhood Education Center.
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Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
- © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center
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