Giggling robot becomes one of the kids

Nov. 7, 2007 — -- Computers might not be clever enough to trick adults into thinking they are intelligent yet, but a new study shows that a giggling robot is sophisticated enough to get toddlers to treat it as a peer.

An experiment led by Javier Movellan at the University of California San Diego, US, is the first long-term study of interaction between toddlers and robots.

The researchers stationed a 2-foot-tall robot called QRIO (pronounced "curio"), and developed by Sony, in a classroom of a dozen toddlers aged between 18 months and two years.

QRIO stayed in the middle of the room using its sensors to avoid bumping the kids or the walls. It was initially programmed to giggle when the kids touched its head, to occasionally sit down, and to lie down when its batteries died. A human operator could also make the robot turn its gaze towards a child or wave as they went away. "We expected that after a few hours, the magic was going to fade," Movellan says. "That's what has been found with earlier robots." But, in fact, the kids warmed to the robot over several weeks, eventually interacting with QRIO in much the same way they did with other toddlers.

The researchers measured the bond between the children and the robot in several ways. Firstly, as with other toddlers, they touched QRIO mostly on the arms and hands, rather than on the face or legs. For this age group, "the amount of touching is a good predictor of how you are doing as a social being", Movellan says.

The children also treated QRIO with more care and attention than a similar-looking but inanimate robot that the researchers called Robby, which acted as a control in the experiment. Once they had grown accustomed to QRIO, they hugged it much more than Robby, who also received far more rough treatment.

A panel, who watched videos of the interactions between the children and QRIO, concluded that these interactions increased in quality over several months.

Eventually, the children seemed to care about the robot's well being. They helped it up when it fell, and played "care-taking" games with it –