Parenting Journal · Volume 2 · Issue 5 · Licensed source edition
The Effects of Social Presence and Familiarity on Children–Robot Interactions
Originally published 2023-04-24 · Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) · DOI 10.3390/s23094231 ↗
AI / system type
Autonomous social robot with basic NLP and preprogrammed adaptive activities
Child-facing evidenceExamines children or child-focused systems. Transfer to everyday family life must be assessed separately.
The AI connection
RoBoHon used a database of social activities and explicitly described basic NLP to select adaptive actions from children’s spoken responses. This was constrained autonomous interaction, not generative conversation.
Why this reading matters
Offers direct evidence about developing comfort with a familiar social AI while preserving the distinction between robot rapport and family or peer well-being.
Editorial reading guide · Kindness
If my child becomes more comfortable with a familiar robot, what does that closeness mean?
Looks at how a familiar robot comes to feel socially close. Rapport ratings increased across repeated interactions, while perceived social presence did not significantly change. Children who initially perceived more social presence later expressed less relational uneasiness; the high-versus-low presence difference in rapport was only marginal. These are feelings about the robot, not evidence of improved human relationships.
Study context
14 children completing four days of robot encounters during a Taiwanese robot-programming workshop; five of 19 initial enrollees did not complete.
Age / stage: Eligible 6–12 years; analyzed mean 10.79 years (SD 1.12)
Read with three questions
- Why did rapport increase while perceived social presence remained stable?
- How should the marginal high-versus-low social-presence rapport result qualify the abstract’s broader relationship claim?
- What can four days in a robot workshop establish about emotional reliance, peer connection or lasting benefit?
Keep the limits in view
Only 14 completers, selected from a robotics workshop; no nonrobot control and no randomized manipulation of perceived social presence. Five initial participants were excluded for noncompletion. Four days and self-reported robot attitudes cannot establish long-term attachment, mental-health change or effects on human relationships.
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Yi-Chen Chen; Su-Ling Yeh; Weijane Lin; Hsiu-Ping Yueh; Li-Chen Fu; Wataru Sato; Carina Soledad González (2023). The Effects of Social Presence and Familiarity on Children–Robot Interactions Sensors (Basel, Switzerland). https://doi.org/10.3390/s23094231
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-04. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.