Over the past decades, researchers have developed a wide range of advanced social and assistance robots that could soon be introduced into households worldwide. Understanding how the introduction of these systems might impact the lives of users and their interactions with others living in their homes is crucial, as it could inform the further improvement of robots before their widespread deployment.
Recent studies suggest that household robot companions could foster educational conversations between parents and children, particularly during story-reading sessions. By actively participating in these sessions, for instance by asking questions or assuming the role of a playmate, robots were found to augment interactions between children and their caregivers, enriching their conversations and supporting the children’s acquisition of new vocabulary.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently carried out a study to further explore the potential of social robots as conversation catalysts and tools to enhance interactions between children and parents. Their findings, published in Science Robotics, suggest that English-speaking robots can improve the quality of dialogue between parents and children, with families that fluently speak English benefitting more from their use.
“The integration of social robots into family environments raises critical questions about their long-term influence on family interactions,” Huili Chen, Yubin Kim and their colleagues wrote in their paper.
“This study explores the potential of social robots as conversational catalysts in human-human dyadic interaction, focusing on enhancing high-quality, reciprocal conversations between parents and children during dialogic co-reading activities.”
To explore the effects of the social robot on parent-child interactions, Chen, Kim and their colleagues carried out a series of experiments involving the social robot Jibo, which was co-developed by a professor at MIT. The robot was installed in the homes of 71 families with children between the ages of 3–7.
Over a period of 1 to 2 months, every family was asked to complete six interactive sessions, during which parents and children read stories alongside the Jibo robot. During these reading sessions, the robot could take on one of three roles: a non-active listener, an active participant displaying the same fixed behavior or an active participant switching between different behaviors.
In this latest mode, the robot would actively interject while the parent was reading a story, asking questions, prompting new dialogues, or behaving like a curious child. Interestingly, the researchers observed that how well parents spoke English (i.e., the language in which Jibo communicated) influenced the extent to which their interactions with their children were enhanced by the robot’s behaviors.
“Our findings reveal that a robot’s active participation enhances the quality of parent-child dialogic conversations,” wrote Chen, Kim and their colleagues. “The influence of robot facilitation varied based on parental English proficiency. Strategy-switching robots provided greater benefits to non–native English–speaking families, whereas dyads with native English–speaking parents benefited more from fixed-strategy robots.”
Overall, Chen, Kim and their colleagues observed that when the Jibo robot actively participated in interactive reading sessions, parents were more involved in conversations with their children and their dialogues appeared richer. The quality of conversations between non-native English-speaking parents benefited most from the involvement of Jibo when the robot was switching between different behaviors, while those of native English-speaking families benefited when the robot displayed the same fixed behaviors.
“These results emphasize the importance of flexible and diverse robot interaction strategies in ensuring equitable benefits across different family profiles,” wrote the authors.
The findings of this recent study are aligned with previous works suggesting that interactive home robots could support parents during story-reading sessions, helping them broaden their children’s vocabulary and strengthen their conversation skills. In the future, they could inspire the development of new robots best suited for enhancing interactions between parents and children with varying language skills.
More information:
Huili Chen et al, Social robots as conversational catalysts: Enhancing long-term human-human interaction at home, Science Robotics (2025). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adk3307.
© 2025 Science X Network
Citation:
Conversation catalysts: Study shows English-speaking robots can enhance parent-child dialogue (2025, April 11)
retrieved 11 April 2025
from https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-conversation-catalysts-english-robots-parent.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
