Nathan G. Freier
Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction
Department of Language, Literature, and Communication
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Abstract
Children are coming of age immersed in a technological world, and the
technologies that make up a child's environment are increasingly
personified in their design. Personified technologies may have
interesting implications for children's social and moral
development.
One of the primary areas of my research investigates the relationships
between child development and the design of personified
technologies.
The topic of this seminar will include a review of two prior studies
that investigated the social and moral implications of children's
interactions with a robotic dog and a graphical avatar. For both
studies, I will discuss specific ways in which the design of the
technology can influence the concepts and behaviors that children bring
to bear on the interaction. I will also briefly discuss an
ongoing
study of children's interactions with a humanoid robot as well as
possible future research directions in this area.
Relevant References
Kahn,
P. H., Jr., Friedman, B., Perez-Granados, D., & Freier, N. G.
(2006). Robotic pets in the lives of preschool children. Interaction
Studies, 7(3), 405-436. [pdf]
Freier, N. G. (2007). Children
distinguish conventional from moral violations in interactions with a
personified agent. Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on
Human Factors in Computing (CHI 2007). San Jose, CA. [pdf]
[Awarded 2nd Place in the CHI 2007 Student Research Competition.]