Study : New 'Social' Robot Can Teach Better Than Humans
A team of researchers from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on a new social robot that is helping
students learn through personalised interactions.
A team led by Cynthia Breazeal, director of
the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, developed a socially
assistive robot called "Tega" that is designed to serve as a one-on-one
peer learner in or outside of the classroom.
"Tega", the latest in a
line of smartphone-based, socially assistive robots developed in the MIT Media
Lab, is unique as it can interpret the emotional response of the student it is
working with and, based on those cues, create a personalised motivational
strategy.
"We started with a very high-quality
approach, and what is amazing is that we were able to show that we could do
even better," said Goren Gordon, an artificial intelligence
(AI) researcher from Tel Aviv University in Israel.
After testing the set-up in a pre-school
classroom, the team showed that the system can learn and improve itself in
response to the unique characteristics of the students it worked with.
A team of researchers
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on a new social
robot that is helping students learn through personalised interactions.
A team led by Cynthia Breazeal, director of
the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, developed a socially
assistive robot called "Tega" that is designed to serve as a
one-on-one peer learner in or outside of the classroom.
"Tega", the latest in a line
of smartphone-based, socially assistive robots developed in the MIT Media Lab,
is unique as it can interpret the emotional response of the student it is
working with and, based on those cues, create a personalised motivational
strategy.
"We started with a very high-quality
approach, and what is amazing is that we were able to show that we could do
even better," said Goren Gordon, an artificial intelligence (AI)
researcher from Tel Aviv University in Israel.
After testing the set-up in a pre-school
classroom, the team showed that the system can learn and improve itself in
response to the unique characteristics of the students it worked with.
The results, shared
at the 30th Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, recently, proved the machine to be more
effective at increasing students' positive attitude towards the robot and
activity than a non-personalized robot assistant.
Specifically developed to enable long-term
interactions with children, "Tega" uses an Android device to process movement, perception and thinking
and can respond appropriately to children's behaviours.
The robot is equipped with an Android phone
containing customised software that can interpret the emotional content of
facial expressions, a method known as "affective computing."
"What is so fascinating is that children
appear to interact with Tega as a peer-like companion in a way that opens up
new opportunities to develop next-generation learning technologies that not
only address the cognitive aspects of learning, like learning vocabulary but
the social and affective aspects of learning as well," Breazeal said.
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Librarian
Khaitan
& Co
Upcoming Event | National Conference on Future
Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) during April 22-23, 2016.
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