Assessing human reactions to different robot attachment profiles

Emotional regulation is believed to be crucial for a balanced emotional and cognitive development in infants. Furthermore, during the first year of a child´s life, the mother is playing a central role in shaping the development, through the attachment bond she shares with her child. Based on previous work on our model of arousal modulation for an autonomous robot, we present an experiment where human adults were interacting visually and via tactile contact with a SONY Aibo robot exploring a children playmat. The robots had two different attachment profiles: one recquiring less attention then the other. The subjects answered one questionnaire per robot, describing how they would rate their experience with each robot. The analysis of the subjects´ responses allow us to conclude that this setting was sufficient to elicit positive and active caretaking-like behaviours from the subjects, according to the profile of the robot they interacted with.