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In recent years, concerns about anxiety and other mental health issues in university students have been widely reported. Some college campuses have seen increased student requests to bring emotional support animals to cam-pus, although these animals are hard to care for in shared living spaces that are common in college settings. This paper reports on a project that seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the role that kawaii (Japanese cuteness) plays in fostering positive human response to, and acceptance of, companion robots for use by college students. In the long term, this may lead to an under-standing of techniques for designing companion robots that assist with student mental health. Specifically, in this paper, we report on a persona-driven and scenario-driven cross-cultural design of two kawaii companion robots and two non-kawaii companion robots. After describing the design process and presenting the companion robot designs, the paper reports on a user study that investigates and compares the desirability of the companion robots based on their level of kawaii. After reading a persona and scenario that provided the context for the design, the study participants viewed videos of the companion robots and answered survey questions regarding the designs. Additionally, participant facial expressions were recorded by iMotions software while the participants viewed videos of the companion robots. 

We report on an extension of a cross-cultural collaborative project between students and faculty at DePauw University in the United States and Shibaura Institute of Technology in Japan. The ongoing project uses cross-cultural teams to design and evaluate virtual companion robots for university students with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of the role that kawaii (Japanese cuteness) plays in fostering positive human response to, and acceptance of, robots across cultures. Members of two cross-cultural teams designed virtual companion robots with specific kawaii attributes. Using these robots, we conducted the first phase of a two-phase user study to understand perceptions of these companion robots. The findings demonstrate that participants judge round companion robots to be more kawaii than angular ones and they also judge colorful robots to be more kawaii than greyscale robots. The phase one study identified pairs of robots that are the most appropriate candidates for conducting further investigations. The appropriateness of these pairs holds across male and female participates as well as across participants whose primary culture is American and those whose primary culture is Japanese. This work prepares us to perform a more detailed study across genders and cultures using both survey results and biosensors. In turn, this will inform our long-term goal of designing robots that are appealing across gender and culture.