Exploring the design space of robots: Children's perspectives

Children's perceptions and evaluations of different robot designs are an important unexplored area within robotics research considering that many robots are specifically designed for children. To examine children's feelings and attitudes towards robots, a large sample of children (N = 159) evaluated 40 robot images by completing a questionnaire for each image, which enquired about robot appearance, robot personality dimensions and robot emotions. Results showed that depending on a robot's appearance children clearly distinguished robots in terms of their intentions (i.e. friendly vs. unfriendly), their capability to understand, and their emotional expression. Results of a principal components analysis of the children's ratings of the robots' personality attributes revealed two dimensions labelled `Behavioural Intention' and `Emotional Expression'. Robots were classified according to their scores on these two dimensions and a content analysis of their...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: IWC
• Authors: Sarah Woods
• Keywords: Behavioural Intentions, Emotional Expression, IWC 2006, Robots