Exploring young children’s images on robots

Abstract

In recent years, human features of the robots are increasingly studied. For example, educational robots are developed and marketed to accompany children. Above all, humanoid robots must deliver friendly images to those young children to interact with. Although many prior studies aimed at the inquiry of robot images based on adult’s view, there are few in-depth studies of children’s perceptions of robot image. This study aims to investigate kindergarten and elementary school students’ perceptions on robots, including perceptions on robot personalities, appearance, and associated emotional expression. A questionnaire about robot’s image was designed to investigate the perception of kindergarten and elementary school students (N = 250). The results indicated that the children had different perceptions of robot emotion with diverse robot appearance, and the children with difference gender had diverse perceptions of robot behavior and emotion. The results of this study can be applied to robot’s design and development in the future.