Children could soon be making friends with robots at nursery school. Scientists have developed a childlike machine that toddlers can be taught to regard as human. It is hoped that the robots will help to improve the children’s behaviour and social skills.

Scientists studied how children aged between ten months and two years reacted to a silver robot placed in a room with them. The robot, which is called QRIO and was built in Japan, can interact with humans, walk, sit down, stand up, move its arms, turn its head and even dance and giggle.

Over a period of more than five months, 45 study sessions were held, each lasting an average of 50 minutes. The sessions ended when the robot sensed it was low on battery power and lay down to “sleep”.

Scientists in the US discovered that the children’s social contact with the robot increased over time. They found QRIO more interesting when it behaved in a “human” way than when it was programmed to dance randomly.

Initially, the toddlers touched the robot on its face and head, but later only on its hands and arms, mimicking the behaviour of children to other humans. By the end of the study they were treating the robot “as a peer rather than as a toy”, the scientists reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When the robot lay down to sleep, children covered it with a blanket while saying “night-night”. They also cried when it fell over and tried to help it to stand up. The children did not treat with the same degree of care a soft toy also placed in the room.

The scientists, led by Dr Fumihide Tanaka, from the University of California, in San Diego, wrote: “We are now developing robots that interact with the children for weeks at a time.”

Hot bots

— Shakey was developed in 1969 at Stanford Research Institute and could “sense” its environment

— Aibo, Sony’s robotic dog, reacts to voice commands and touch

— Asimo, Honda’s humanoid, like Aibo built in 2000, can go upstairs, answer the door and understand gestures and spoken orders

— SDR-4X is a Sony robot that can sing, dance, recognise faces, voices and names, hold simple conversations and even get up after being pushed over

Source: Times Database

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