The robot asked questions from a psychological questionnaire. Parents and scientists watched the process unseen from an adjacent room.
Scientists in Britain have shown for the first time to the world that the humanoid robot can be effectively used to assess the children’s mental state. In fact, it seems that a robot in several cases manages to bring to light potential psychological problems of children better than parents or experts.
The researchers (roboticists, IT specialists and psychiatrists) of the University of Cambridge, led by the Turkish-born professor Hatis Gounes, heads of the Laboratory of Emotional Intelligence and Robotics, who made the announcement at an international conference in Naples, Italy (31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication RO-MAN), studied 28 children aged eight to 13, with the help of a small 60 cm tall humanoid robot Nao.
The bot asked questions from one psychological questionnaire, in order to assess the mental health of each child. Parents and scientists watched the process unseen from an adjacent room. Children could interact with the robot, either by talking to it or touching its arms and legs where touch sensors were located. All the children stated after the experiment that they enjoyed the conversation with the robot.
It was found that the children were generally willing to confide in the robot even things that until that moment had not been shared with others, parents or doctors. Some children who had more intense negative feelings were able to talk about them more easily to the robot than to a human.
According to the researchers, “Since the robot used was child-sized and non-threatening, the children trusted it and felt they would have no problem sharing secrets with it. And other studies have found that children are more likely to confide personal information, such as being bullied, to a robot than to an adult.”
The researchers said that in the future robots can be one useful additional tool beyond traditional methods of psychological assessment and reassured that they are not intended to replace mental health professionals.
They emphasized that “we have no intention of replacing psychologists or other mental health professionals with robots, because the experience of the latter far exceeds anything a robot can do. But as our research shows, robots can be a useful tool to help children open up and share things they might not otherwise feel comfortable saying.”
The researchers plan to expand their research in the future by including more children and tracking their relationship with the robots over a longer period of time. It will also be investigated whether similar positive effects can occur if children interact with robots not in person but through a video call.
Incidents of anxiety and depression in children were showing an upward trend even before the pandemic, which worsened their mental health status.
RES-EMP
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