Impressions of Training Robots with Learning Systems for Intelligence Testing

In recent years, as the proportion of children with developmental disabilities in regular classrooms has increased,the demand for clinical psychologists capable of conducting psychological assessments has also grown.Training methods for psychological assessments typically include classroom-based instruction and practical exercisesor internships with real participants. However, due to difficulties in securing internship sites and assessmentsubjects, clinical psychologists often lack sufficient opportunities to receive adequate hands-on training in psychologicalassessments. To address this issue, we developed a child-like robot (hereinafter referred to as the proposed robot)to support clinical psychologists in practicing the administration of intelligence tests. The proposed robot is equippedwith speech content that mimics the responses of children undergoing intelligence testing. In this study, we developedtwo types of robots: (1) a conversation-oriented robot that allows trainees to practice intelligence tests throughinteractive dialogue, and (2) a system-equipped robot with a built-in learning system that displays test procedures andmanuals. We then conducted a user study to investigate clinical psychologists ’impressions of training with the twotypes of proposed robots. The participants were clinical psychologists who had already studied the target intelligencetest. The experimental results revealed that the conversation-oriented robot received more favorable evaluations comparedto the system-equipped robot, suggesting that voice-based training may provide a more engaging experiencefor clinical psychologists.