Papers
6
Total Citations
56
H-Index
5
About
Jason Weigel is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of child–robot interaction, social robotics, and early childhood education. His work focuses on understanding how young children engage with robotic agents, particularly through dialogue, storytelling, and physical touch. Weigel’s major contributions include developing frameworks for analyzing spatiotemporal engagement in dialogic storytelling interactions, where he demonstrated that a robot’s contingent behavioral modifications are critical for sustaining children’s attention and learning. His highly cited 2017 study (21 citations) on this topic remains foundational in the field. Weigel also advanced methodological innovation through his “pretotyping” approach, using low-fidelity “social cardboard” ethnodroids to gauge children’s expectations and strategies before building full-scale robots—a technique that has influenced rapid prototyping in human-robot interaction. His work on children’s touch with social robots (cumulatively over 11 citations) introduced novel sensing tools and analytical techniques to safely interpret the volume and variety of tactile interactions. By studying children as young as two years old in naturalistic settings, Weigel has shaped how researchers design robots that are socially responsive, safe, and developmentally appropriate for early learning environments.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3Social cardboard: Pretotyping a social ethnodroid in the wild8 citations · 2016
- 4Social Cardboard: Pretotyping a Social Ethnodroid in the Wild7 citations · 2016
- 5Hand in Hand: Tools and techniques for understanding children's touch with a social robot6 citations · 2016
- 6