Effects of a gaze-looking expression method during listening in Pupiloid for children

Social robots are equipped with various sensors such as cameras, microphones, and tactile sensors, and realized rich interactions with children. Previous research has been reported that children felt like a close friend and were more likely to self-disclose than other humans when communicating with a social robot. Therefore, it is expected that it will be possible to build close relationships and develop trustworthy robots by introducing an active listening attitude to social robots, as if they were communicating with human. We have already developed Pupiloid, a speech-driven embodied listening system that expresses an active listening attitude using only the eyes based on the talker's speech. Pupiloid can give the talker a sense of attentive listening by generating nodding movements through eye movement and expressing interest through enlarged pupils. Furthermore, the effectiveness of Pupiloid’s listening attitude was demonstrated by a communication experiment with twenties participants. However, the impression that Pupiloid forms on children has not been investigated, and it is unclear whether the Pupiloid is effective on children. In this study, impressions of Pupiloid were investigated among a total of 110 children who participated in a hands-on experiment at an elementary school and a robotics event. The impression evaluation results demonstrated that children also formed favorable impressions of Pupiloid, with a high evaluation of its familiarity and sense of attentive listening.