Toward Understanding Children’s and Adults ’ Encounters with Social Robots

Abstract

While the design of social robots, has engaged research-ers for some time, only recently have the human implica-tions of interaction with such robots been considered. In this paper, we address how children and adults behave toward and think about the social robot AIBO. Our work is informed by a conceptual framework that draws on constructs within cognitive psychology: the essentialist theory of cognitive development and scripts. At the same time, our research challenges assumptions of both the es-sentialist theory of cognitive development and scripts and argues for a more dynamic and complex formulation of these constructs. Four studies of children and adults in-teracting with AIBO conducted by our research team serve to illustrate aspects of this framework. We close by suggesting further questions raised by this work. Reeves and Nass (2002) have proposed that “individuals’ interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life ” (p. 5 authors ’ emphasis). The new media of social robots are of special interest in this regard, since they particularly evoke social and affective human re-