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Robot-mediated interventions are one promising and novel approach for encouraging motor exploration in young children, but knowledge about the effectiveness of toy-like features for child-robot interaction is limited. We were interested in understanding the characteristics of current toys to inform the design of interactive abilities for assistive robots. This work first provides a systematic review of toy characteristics in n=154 Fisher-Price products and then analyzes the effectiveness of common and uncommon toy-like behaviors from our custom assistive robot. Toy review results showed that light and sound features were significantly more common than bubbles, wheels, and self-propulsion. Exploratory play sessions with our assistive robot showed that bubbles were significantly more successful at encouraging child motion than other robot behaviors. Further, all studied robot behaviors demonstrated the capability to encourage child motion. The products of this work can inform the efforts of human-robot interaction and child development experts who study child mobility interventions. 

All robots create consequential sound—sound produced as a result of the robot’s mechanisms—yet little work has explored how sound impacts human-robot interaction. Recent work shows that the sound of different robot mechanisms affects perceived competence, trust, human-likeness, and discomfort. However, the physical sound characteristics responsible for these perceptions have not been clearly identified. In this paper, we aim to explore key characteristics of robot sound that might influence perceptions. A pilot study from our past work showed that quieter and higher-pitched robots may be perceived as more competent and less discomforting. To better understand how variance in these attributes affects perception, we performed audio manipulations on two sets of industrial robot arm videos within a series of four new studies presented in this paper. Results confirmed that quieter robots were perceived as less discomforting. In addition, higher-pitched robots were perceived as more energetic, happy, warm, and competent. Despite the robot’s industrial purpose and appearance, participants seemed to prefer more "cute" (or "kawaii") sound profiles, which could have implications for the design of more acceptable and fulfilling sound profiles for human-robot interactions with practical collaborative robots. 

Background: Play is critical for children’s physical, cognitive, and social development. Technology-based toys like robots are especially of interest to children. This pilot study explores the affordances of the play area provided by developmentally appropriate toys and a mobile socially assistive robot (SAR). The objective of this study is to assess the role of the SAR on physical activity, play behavior, and toy-use behavior of children during free play. Methods: Six children (5 females, M age = 3.6 ± 1.9 years) participated in the majority of our pilot study’s seven 30-minute-long weekly play sessions (4 baseline and 3 intervention). During baseline sessions, the SAR was powered off. During intervention sessions, the SAR was teleoperated to move in the play area and offered rewards of lights, sounds, and bubbles to children. Thirty-minute videos of the play sessions were annotated using a momentary time sampling observation system. Mean percentage of time spent in behaviors of interest in baseline and intervention sessions were calculated. Paired-Wilcoxon signed rank tests were conducted to assess differences between baseline and intervention sessions. Results: There was a significant increase in children’s standing (∼15%; Z = −2.09; p = 0.037) and a tendency for less time sitting (∼19%; Z = −1.89; p = 0.059) in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. There was also a significant decrease (∼4.5%, Z = −2.70; p = 0.007) in peer interaction play and a tendency for greater (∼4.5%, Z = −1.89; p = 0.059) interaction with adults in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. There was a significant increase in children’s interaction with the robot (∼11.5%, Z = −2.52; p = 0.012) in the intervention phase as compared to the baseline phase. Conclusion: These results may indicate that a mobile SAR provides affordances through rewards that elicit children’s interaction with the SAR and more time standing in free play. This pilot study lays a foundation for exploring the role of SARs in inclusive play environments for children with and without mobility disabilities in real-world settings like day-care centers and preschools. 

Lovable robots in movies regularly beep, chirp, and whirr, yet robots in the real world rarely deploy such sounds. Despite preliminary work supporting the perceptual and objective benefits of intentionally-produced robot sound, relatively little research is ongoing in this area. In this paper, we systematically evaluate transformative robot sound across multiple robot archetypes and behaviors. We conducted a series of five online video-based surveys, each with N ≈ 100 participants, to better understand the effects of musician-designed transformative sounds on perceptions of personal, service, and industrial robots. Participants rated robot videos with transformative sound as significantly happier, warmer, and more competent in all five studies, as more energetic in four studies, and as less discomforting in one study. Overall, results confirmed that transformative sounds consistently improve subjective ratings but may convey affect contrary to the intent of affective robot behaviors. In future work, we will investigate the repeatability of these results through in-person studies and develop methods to automatically generate transformative robot sound. This work may benefit researchers and designers who aim to make robots more favorable to human users. 

Childhood ambulatory disabilities detract from not only the physical development, but also the social engagement of young children. Commercial mobility aids can help improve the autonomy of children with disabilities, but affordability issues, policy challenges, and uncertainty about training standards limit early use of these devices. In this paper, we build on affordable research-grade mobility aids for young children and consider how to design and evaluate an assistive robot that can support the use of these devices. With young children’s contingency learning abilities in mind, we designed an assistive mobile robot capable of supplying age-appropriate light, sound, and bubble rewards. We conducted a first evaluation of the robot’s ability to support driving practice with N = 5 typically developing infants. The results indicate mixed success of the robot rewards; driving distances uniformly tended to fall over the course of the study, but children did tend to look at the robot. In a second exploratory study involving N = 6 children in free ambulatory play, we see clearer differences in gaze and behavior from the introduction of an assistive robot. Generally, this research can inform others interested in assistive robotic interventions for young children.