A Social Humanoid Robot as a Playfellow for Vocabulary Enhancement

Abstract

We introduce a system that exploits a Pepper humanoid robot acting as a playfellow in a word-play game. The robot can play a portmanteau game by directly interacting with children, and it exploits a conversation engine, a portmanteau creation engine, and a definition engine. The humanoid can play the role of either an answerer or a generator of new words.