Publication
Effects of Off-Activity Talk in Human-Robot Interaction with Diabetic Children.
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová; Elettra Oleari; Ilaria Baroni; Bernd Kiefer; Mattia Coti Zelati; Clara Pozzi; Alberto Sanna
In: Ro-Man 2014: The 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), August 25-29, Edinburgh, Pages 649-654, IEEE, 8/2014.
Abstract
This paper presents the results from an experiment with a conversational human-robot interaction system
aimed at long-term support for diabetic children. The system
offers a set of activities aimed to help a child to improve its
capability to manage diabetes. There is a large body of literature
on the techniques that artificial agents can use to establish and
maintain long-term social-emotional relationships with their
users. The novel aspect in the present study is the inclusion of
off-activity talk interspersed within talk pertaining the activity
at hand and aimed to elicit the child’s self-disclosure. The
children in our study (N=20, age 11–14) were more interested
to have another session with the robot when their interaction
included also off-activity talk, even though there was no
difference in the perception of the robot by the children between
the groups with and without off-activity talk. Furthermore,
individual interactions with the robot positively influenced the
children’s adherence to a therapy-related requirement, namely
the filling in of a nutritional diary.