Robotics for Children

Transcription

1 Vol. xx No. xx, pp.1 8, 200x Robotics for Children New Directions in Child Education and Therapy Fumihide Tanaka 1,HidekiKozima 2, Shoji Itakura 3 and Kazuo Hiraki 4 Robotics intersects with children in diverse ways; it opens new scientific research fields of understanding humans with collaborating with psychologies and other related fields. At the same time, it is expected to offer useful applications for early childhood education and therapy. But, it has to be recognized that the robotics technology could be a double-edged sword, meaning that it could be hazardous if we did not exploit it in appropriate ways. Robots are thought to have double character; sometimes they show human-like features but other times they just look like an object. We need to understand the character well and consider appropriate forms of application based on the character. In this paper, firstly we will review the past studies around robotics and children, and we will also discuss the potential risk of robotics for children. Then, we will propose some new ideas in the application of robotics for early childhood education and therapy, considering the double character of robots. Key Words: Early childhood education, Therapeutic robots, Childcare robots, Roboethics, Care-receiver robots 1. *1 *2 *3 *4 *1 Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba *2 School of Project Design, Miyagi University *3 Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University *4 Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, The University of Tokyo xx xx 1 200x xx

2 [1] [2] [1] [3] Robovie [4] 2 3 Robovie Meltzoff [5] Meltzoff [5] Re-enactment of goal paradigm Meltzoff 18 Robovie [6] 4 1 Robovie 2 Robovie 3 Robovie 4 Robovie Robovie 3 Robovie Robovie Robovie Robovie Robovie Robovie Robovie Robovie Meltzoff Robovie JRSJ Vol. xx No. xx 2 xx, 200x

3 3 2 3 Meltzoff Robovie 2. 3 [7] [8] 1 Infanoid [7] [8] [9] [11] (1) (2) 5 [10] [11] xx xx 3 200x xx

4 4 Robovie 2 [12] Han e-learning [13] Movellan [14] childcare robot [15] [16] Dautenhahn AuRoRa [17] Robota [18] Robota Robota [19] [20] [21] Keepon [21] Keepon 4. Roboethics [22] [24] 2 3 [25] [26] JRSJ Vol. xx No. xx 4 xx, 200x

5 5 [24] 1,200 [27] [28] Care-receiver care-giver care-receiver Fig. 1 Fig. 1 Children Children Instruction Instruction Learning by Teaching Teachers Parents Robot (a) Robots play the role of Care-givers Robot (b) Robots play the role of Care-receivers (a) The conventional framework where robots are supposed to play the role of care-givers. Children learn from the robots, with watching and listening to educational programs presented by the robots (some robots are equipped with a monitor in front of the body to show animations or instructions). Childcare robots explained in Section 3. 1 belong to this category. (b) The proposed framework where children take the role of care-givers and thus robots are supposed to be care-receivers. It is also important that in this framework teachers/parents always initiate any educational action; they ask children to teach *something* to the robots, and they are supposed to watch over and coordinate the learning by teaching of the children. The robots are the supporting-material of the teachers/parents for the purpose. learning by teaching learning by teaching xx xx 5 200x xx

6 6 [10] care-receiver [29] [30] [31] [32] Fig. 2 Fig. 2 structural complexity (ontological understandability) human-like non-human humanoid (programmed) pet robot (programmed) toy robot (programmed) periodic reflexive physically situated humanoid (teleoperated) pet robot (teleoperated) toy robot (teleoperated) socially situated functional complexity (predictability) A design space for structural and functional complexity of robots for autism therapy. Robots structural and functional complexity determines understandability and predictability of the robots behavior. The functional complexity can be manipulated by gradually increasing (or freeing) degrees of freedom and by gradually introducing a dependence on physical and social situations to their behavior. By manipulating the structural and functional complexity, we can tune the robot s behavior to each child s cognitive style and developmental stage, providing a zone of proximal development JRSJ Vol. xx No. xx 6 xx, 200x

7 7 6. care-giver care-receiver care-giver 21 COE [ 1 ] A. Arita, K. Hiraki, T. Kanda and H. Ishiguro: Can we talk to robots?: Ten-month-old infants expected interactive humanoid robots to be talked to by persons, Cognition, Vol.95, No.3, pp.b49 B57, [2]K.Kamewari,M.Kato,T.Kanda,H.IshiguroandK.Hiraki: Six-and-a-half-month-old children positively attribute goals to human action and to humanoid-robot motion, Cognitive Development, Vol.20, pp , [ 3 ] M. Legerstee, J. Barna and C. DiAdamo: Precursors to the development of intention at 6 months: Understanding people and their actions, Developmental Psychology, Vol.36, No.5, pp , [ 4 ] S. Itakura, H. Ishida, T. Kanda, Y. Shimada, H. Ishiguro and K. Lee: How to build an intentional android: Infants imitation of a robot s goal-directed actions, Infancy, Vol.13, pp , [ 5 ] A.N. Meltzoff: Understanding the Intentions of Others: Re- Enactment of Intended Acts by 18-Month-Old Children, Developmental Psychology, Vol.31, No.5, pp , [ 6 ] R. Barr and H. Hayne: Age-related changes in imitation: Implications for memory development, Progress in infancy research, Vol.1, pp.21 67, [7] Vol.16 No.6 pp [ 8 ] H. Kozima, C. Nakagawa and H. Yano: Can a robot empathize with people?, Artificial Life and Robotics, Vol.8, No.1, pp.83 88, [ 9 ] F. Tanaka, J.R. Movellan, B. Fortenberry and K. Aisaka: Daily HRI evaluation at a classroom environment: reports from dance interaction experiments, Proc. of the 1st Annual Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI-2006), Salt Lake City, USA, Mar. 2006, pp.3 9. [10] F. Tanaka, A. Cicourel and J.R. Movellan: Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Vol.104, No.46, pp , [11] pp [12] T. Kanda, T. Hirano, D. Eaton and H. Ishiguro: Interactive Robots as Social Partners and Peer Tutors for Children: A Field Trial, Human Computer Interaction, Vol.19, No.1 2, pp.61 84, [13] J. Han, M. Jo, S. Park and S. Kim: The educational use of home robots for children, Proc. of the IEEE Int. Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2005), Nashville, USA, Aug. 2005, pp [14] J.R. Movellan, F. Tanaka, I.R. Fasel, C. Taylor, P. Ruvolo and M. Eckhardt: The RUBI project: a progress report, Proc. of the 2nd Int. Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI-2007), Arlington, USA, Mar. 2007, pp [15] [16] [17] K. Dautenhahn: Robots as Social Actors: AURORA and the Case of Autism, Proc. of the 3rd Int. Cognitive Technology Conf. San Francisco, USA, Aug. 1999, pp [18] A. Billard: Play, dreams and imitation in Robota, Socially Intelligent Agent. pp , Kluwer Academic Publishers, [19] B. Robins, P. Dickerson, P. Stribling and K. Dautenhahn: Robot-Mediated Joint Attention in Children with Autism: A Case Study in Robot-Human Interaction, Interaction Studies, Vol.5, No.2, pp , [20] H. Kozima and C. Nakagawa: Interactive robots as facilitators of children s social development, Mobile Robots: Towards New Applications. pp , Advanced Robotic Systems, [21] Vol.49 pp [22] G. Veruggio (Chair): First International Symposium on Roboethics, Sanremo, Italy, Jan [23] [24] N.E. Sharkey: The Ethical Frontiers of Robotics, Science, Vol.322, pp , [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] H. Kozima, M.P. Michalowski and C. Nakagawa: Keepon: A playful robot for research, therapy, and entertainment, International Journal of Social Robotics, Vol.1, No.1, pp.3 18, [30] S. Baron-Cohen: Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind, MIT Press, [31] U. Frith: Autism: Explaining the enigma, Blackwell, [32] S. Baron-Cohen: The extreme male brain theory of autism, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.6, pp , xx xx 7 200x xx

8 8 Fumihide Tanaka University of California, San Diego JST IEEE RO-MAN Best Paper Award JSAI SICE Hideki Kozima MIT 2008 IEEE RO-MAN 2003 Best Paper Award HAI-2006 Outstanding Research Robots at Play Prize 2007 IPSJ JSAI Shoji Itakura Developmental Cybernetics Kazuo Hiraki JRSJ Vol. xx No. xx 8 xx, 200x