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1. "What Does Your Robot Do?" A Tabletop Role-Playing Game to Support Robot Design

   https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515554  

   Collins, Sawyer; Sabanovic, Selma (August 2021, 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN))

   null (Ed.)

   Social robot co-design requires aiding users as they imagine these novel devices within their everyday lives and enabling designers to understand and address users’ experiences. This paper presents the exploratory development and evaluation of a role-playing game aimed at identifying the desired features and uses of a social robot that can assist people diagnosed with depression. Participants (n = 16) played the game as a character with depression, designed a companion robot for that character, and chose reactions to daily challenges. Though participants initially selected robot capabilities based on their own needs, after the game they identified alternative designs that would better address daily challenges faced by individuals with depression. We discuss aspects of the game that allowed participants to understand how various robot characteristics can address the experience of depression and suggest how role-playing games can support users and designers in identifying beneficial features and uses of emerging robotic technologies. 

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2. The role of representational competencies for students’ learning from an educational video game for astronomy

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.919645  

   Herder, Tiffany; Rau, Martina A. (November 2022, Frontiers in Education)

   Educational video games can engage students in authentic STEM practices, which often involve visual representations. In particular, because most interactions within video games are mediated through visual representations, video games provide opportunities for students to experience disciplinary practices with visual representations. Prior research on learning with visual representations in non-game contexts suggests that visual representations may confuse students if they lack prerequisite representational-competencies. However, it is unclear how this research applies to game environments. To address this gap, we investigated the role of representational-competencies for students’ learning from video games. We first conducted a single-case study of a high-performing undergraduate student playing an astronomy game as an assignment in an astronomy course. We found that this student had difficulties making sense of the visual representations in the game. We interpret these difficulties as indicating a lack of representational-competencies. Further, these difficulties seemed to lead to the student’s inability to relate the game experiences to the content covered in his astronomy course. A second study investigated whether interventions that have proven successful in structured learning environments to support representational-competencies would enhance students’ learning from visual representations in the video game. We randomly assigned 45 students enrolled in an undergraduate course to two conditions. Students either received representational-competency support while playing the astronomy game or they did not receive this support. Results showed no effects of representational-competency supports. This suggests that instructional designs that are effective for representational-competency supports in structured learning environments may not be effective for educational video games. We discuss implications for future research, for designers of educational games, and for educators. 

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3. Understanding Factors that Shape Children’s Long Term Engagement with an In-Home Learning Companion Robot

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3501712.3529747  

   Cagiltay, Bengisu; White, Nathan Thomas; Ibtasar, Rabia; Mutlu, Bilge; Michaelis, Joseph (June 2022, Interaction Design and Children (IDC '22))

   Social robots are emerging as learning companions for children, and research shows that they facilitate the development of interest and learning even through brief interactions. However, little is known about how such technologies might support these goals in authentic environments over long-term periods of use and interaction. We designed a learning companion robot capable of supporting children reading popular-science books by expressing social and informational commentaries. We deployed the robot in homes of 14 families with children aged 10–12 for four weeks during the summer. Our analysis revealed critical factors that affected children’s long-term engagement and adoption of the robot, including external factors such as vacations, family visits, and extracurricular activities; family/parental involvement; and children’s individual interests. We present four in-depth cases that illustrate these factors and demonstrate their impact on children’s reading experiences and discuss the implications of our findings for robot design. 

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4. SocialCueSwitch: Towards Customizable Accessibility by Representing Social Cues in Multiple Senses

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3651109  

   Segal, Jonathan Isaac; Rodriguez, Samuel; Raghavan, Akshaya; Baez, Heysil; Jung, Crescentia; Collins, Jazmin; Azenkot, Shiri; Stevenson_Won, Andrea (May 2024, ACM)

   In virtual environments, many social cues (e.g. gestures, eye contact, and proximity) are currently conveyed visually or auditorily. Indicating social cues in other modalities, such as haptic cues to complement visual or audio signals, will help to increase VR’s accessibility and take advantage of the platform’s inherent flexibility. However, accessibility implementations in social VR are often siloed by single sensory modalities. To broaden the accessibility of social virtual reality beyond replacing one sensory modality with another, we identified a subset of social cues and built tools to enhance them allowing users to switch between modalities to choose how these cues are represented. Because consumer VR uses primarily visual and auditory stimuli, we started with social cues that were not accessible for blind and low vision (BLV) and d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people, and expanded how they could be represented to accommodate a number of needs. We describe how these tools were designed around the principle of social cue switching, and a standard distribution method to amplify reach. 

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5. “My Unconditional Homework Buddy:” Exploring Children’s Preferences for a Homework Companion Robot

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3585088.3589388  

   Cagiltay, Bengisu; Mutlu, Bilge; Michaelis, Joseph E (June 2023, IDC '23: Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference)

   We aim to design robotic educational support systems that can promote socially and intellectually meaningful learning experiences for students while they complete school work outside of class. To pursue this goal, we conducted participatory design studies with 10 children (aged 10–12) to explore their design needs for robot assisted homework. We investigated children’s current ways of doing homework, the type of support they receive while doing homework, and co-designed the speech and expressiveness of a homework companion robot. Children and parents attending our design sessions explained that an emotionally expressive social robot as a homework aid can support students’ motivation and engagement, as well as their affective state. Children primarily perceived the robot as a dedicated assistant at home, capable of forming meaningful friendships, or a shared classroom learning resource. We present key design recommendations to support students’ homework experiences with a learning companion robot. 

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