On average, robots today can hold human interest for only about 10 hours, but in a new study, a humanoid robot dubbed QRIO (pronounced "curio") was accepted by human toddlers as "one of them" for 5 months before it was taken away. Why? Well it is no mystery that humans revel in the sense of touch. The premise that if a robot responded when touched - would improve the chances that the robot would be much more acceptable was proven out when QRIO was programmed to have a crude sense of touch. In the study, QRIO was introduced into a classroom of toddlers aged 18 months to 24 months. Children of this age group were chosen because they have no preconceived notions of robots and they communicate using touch as much as speech. In phase I of the experiment, which lasted 27 sessions, QRIO was instructed to interact with the children using its full behavioral repertoire, which included head-turning, dancing and giggling. At first, the children would touch the robot on its face, but as they warmed to him, the majority of their touches were to its hands and arms—a pattern the children also displayed toward each other. During phase II, which lasted 15 sessions, QRIO ignored the children's touches and danced throughout the session. At that point, the [children] quickly lost interest. When QRIO's ability to respond to touch and giggle were returned for three sessions in phase III, the children became friendly with the robot again. What proved even more interesting is that the response to touch is more important than being humaniform. QRIO only basically mimics the human form, this however seemed no impediment to it being accepted as long as it responded when touched.Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post
pic credit Credit: J. Movellan et al., UCSD
