Presence of Life-Like Robot Expressions Influences Children’s Enjoyment of Human-Robot Interactions in the Field

Emotions, and emotional expression, have a broad influence on the interactions we have with others and are thus a key factor to consider in developing social robots. As part of a collaborative EU project, this study examined the impact of lifelike affective facial expressions, in the humanoid robot Zeno, on children’s behavior and attitudes towards the robot. Results indicate that robot expressions have mixed effects depending on the gender of the participant. Male participants showed a positive affective response, and indicated greater liking towards the robot, when it made positive and negative affective facial expressions during an interactive game, when compared to the same robot with a neutral expression. Female participants showed no marked difference across two conditions. This is the first study to demonstrate an effect of life-like emotional expression on children’s behavior in the field. We discuss the broader implications of these findings in terms of gender differences in HRI, noting the importance of the gender appearance of the robot (in this case, male) and in relation to the overall strategy of the project to advance the understanding of how interactions with expressive robots could lead to task-appropriate symbiotic relationships.