Can Children Take Advantage of Nao Gaze-Based Hints During GamePlay?

Abstract

This paper presents a study that analyzes the effects of robots' gaze hints on children's performance in a card-matching game. We conducted a within-subjects study, in which children played a card matching game "Memory" in the presence of a robot tutor in two sessions. In one session, the robot gave hints to help the child find matching cards by looking at the correct match and, in the other session, the robot only looked at the child and did not give them any help. Children performance was measured using the number of tries and overall time used to complete the game. Our findings show that the use of gaze hints (help condition) made the matching task significantly easier and that children used significantly fewer tries than without help.