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Cross-Cultural Use of Physical and Virtual Robots to Reveal Cognitive Understanding in Young Children

By Cook, Albert M.; Encarnacao, Pedro; Adams, Kim; Alvarez, Liliana; Rios, Adriana; RESNA 2012 Student Design Competition,
Publication Date: June 30 - July 2, 2012

Paper compares the results of three studies conducted in Canada, Portugal, and Colombia where typically developing children aged 3 to 5 years used physical and virtual robots to execute the same play tasks. For the Canadian study, 18 children in 3 age brackets used a Mindstorms RCX 2.0 robot in two sessions. The Portugal study included 20 children in three age brackets, while 15 children participated in the Colombia study, for which no age brackets were defined. For both the Portugal and Colombia studies, participants used a physical Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 robot and a matching virtual robot in each of two sessions. In all studies, 4 tasks were performed involving (1) cause and effect, making the robot move forward until it knocks over a stack of blocks; (2) inhibition, stopping the robot at specified stations; (3A) binary choice, making the robot turn 90 degrees to face one of two stacks of blocks; followed by (3B) sequencing, moving toward the chosen stack of blocks. Success rates in each task were recorded. Results from all three studies showed that children’s performance improved with age. The Portugal and Colombia studies did not reveal significant differences between the performances with the physical and virtual robots. No significant differences between the two robots were evident in the performance of children from different socioeconomic strata in the Portugal and Colombia studies. This could suggest that the cognitive skills required for the operation of the two robots are similar and not influenced by previous exposure to technology related to socioeconomic differences.
Published by: Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA)   (Website:http://www.resna.org)

Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA)    (Web Site: http://www.resna.org )
Link to text: http://web.resna.org/conference/proceedings/2012/Robotics/CROSS-CULTURALUSEOFPHYSICALANDVIRTUALROBOTSTOREVEALCOGNITIVEUNDERSTANDINGINYOUNGCHILDREN.html
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