Behavior Analysis of Children´s Touch on a Small Humanoid Robot: Long-term Observation at a Daily Classroom over Three Months

We have been conducting HRI (human-robot interaction) studies with the basic principle of design by immersion, which suggests the importance of researchers moving themselves into unconstrained daily-life environments. This is crucial for design and development of social robots that interact and assist people in the daily real-world. In this paper we report findings on a study where a small humanoid robot kept attending at a nursery school on a daily basis for more than three months. We focus on children´s touch behavior on the robot, and conduct video analyses based on six categories related to the touch behavior. Results tell us important conditions for designing every-day robots.