PLEA: A social robot with teaching and interacting capabilities

Abstract

An approach to the design of learning environments where a social robot plays a role of a teacher is discussed in this study. Built-in robot functionalities provide a degree of situational embodiment, self-explainability, and context-driven interaction. The concept of embodiment enables immersion of the teacher into distant 3D environments. In that way the level of mutual understanding between participants is increased compared to a 2D world. Moreover, the tools that accompany the interaction empower augmentation by revealing the additional information present in gestures, facial expressions, or gaze direction. We use three distinct sources fused in a multimodal approach (face emotion recognition, level of loudness, and body movement intensity). The change in one modality can change the overall system reasoning. The teacher can benefit from this information by adapting a presentation style and achieve a better rapport with students. The theoretical basis is provided by studies of human communication in psycholinguistics and social psychology. Usability evaluation is based on the Wizard of Oz approach, allowing a teacher to interact with students through an interface. The conducted experiments show encouraging responses. Future studies will show in what way and to what extent a cognitive robot can be truly effective in technology-enhanced learning.