Young children's perception of IrobiQ, the teacher assistive robot, with reference to speech register

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore young children's perception of IrobiQ, the teacher assistive robot. Participants of this study were fifty 5-year-olds from three different kindergarten centers with at least two years of experience in HRI environments. The study was conducted based on the “the hypothesis of speech register”. A researcher read a story from a storybook to each child and asked to choose the one that is the most suitable replacement of human speech tones and accents among a robot, a friend and a toy. The findings of this study were that the children perceived a robot as a hybrid compound entity, not as a complete human being though they perceived it closer to a human than an artificial thing. They were likely to use cognitive distinctions which are unique to human being, as the criteria to verify their answers.