Hi, Robot

This chapter focuses on children’s perception of and interaction with robots. In this way, it follows from Chapter 8 and its focus on understanding of extraordinary minds. Every year, robots become a larger part of adults’ and children’s lives. They are designed to play games, answer questions, read stories, and even watch children unsupervised. Current research suggests that robots might be effective in these roles for young children but less so with older ones. Because robots play an expanding role in children’s lives, we need an expanding research program to understand child–robot interactions for children in a wide range of ages. The chapter overviews emerging research beginning to study this. It also outlines future studies needed to examine children’s learning from robots, along with the complex relationship between children’s perceptions of robots, experiences with robots, how they treat them, and how those interactions impact children’s social development and their interactions with others.