Introducing Children and Young People with Sight Loss to Social Robots:A Preliminary Workshop

Abstract

Meaningful first-time interactions between humans and robots are important for learning functionality, shaping impressions, and building trust. Additionally, robots should be an inclusive tool, accessible to all, yet typical introductory human-robot interactions rely heavily on the human's visual perceptions. For children and young people with sight loss, this is can be problematic. Therefore, we present a preliminary workshop with four children and young people with sight loss in order to begin investigating how this population learns about social robots for the first time, their overall impressions of social robots, and whether games could assist in creating positive first-time interactions. Our initial findings reveal the importance of promoting tactile exploration, clarifying safety aspects, and careful consideration of the communication of robot emotion.