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This story is from the category Artificial Intelligence
Date posted: 23/10/2011 David DeSteno, an associate professor of psychology at Northeastern, and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, are examining how social robots can aid preschoolers in language learning, which DeSteno said, isn’t possible with current computer-based learning. “You can watch a video, or play a computer game, but there’s no dynamic social component in those technologies, which research is showing to be really important for learning in children,” said DeSteno, who runs the Social Emotions Group lab at Northeastern. DeSteno is working on the project — funded by a four-year $923,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for Cyberlearning Initiatives — in collaboration with Cynthia Breazeal at MIT’s Personal Robots Group lab and Paul Harris, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education at Harvard University. This award comes on the heels of a prior NSF-funded collaboration between DeSteno and Breazeal, who used the wide-eyed robot Nexi to reveal how people use social cues to determine strangers’ trustworthiness. To appeal to young children, the robot prototype in this new project resembles a cute, stuffed animal-like dragon. Its movement appears very life-like and can be remotely controlled through an Internet interface. “Certain non-verbal cues like mimicking behavior to improve rapport and social bonding, or changes in gaze direction to guide shared attention, are central,” DeSteno said. “When kids learn from human teachers, these cues enhance the learning. We’re designing our new dragon robots to be able to have these capabilities.” See the full Story via external site: www.physorg.com Most recent stories in this category (Artificial Intelligence): 18/04/2013: NASA's Plan to Advance Robotics by Robotically Capturing small Asteroid |
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