robofriend
Robofriend: An Adpative Storytelling Robotic Teddy Bear -- Technical Report
Glanz, Ido, Weksler, Matan, Karpas, Erez, Horowitz-Kraus, Tzipi
Language exposure at an early stage of development is critical for the facilitation of brain networks associated with language Kuhl [2004], Cardillo and Kuhl [2009], Moon et al. [2013]. Storytelling is one form of language exposure, which was found to be associated with a greater engagement not only in language processing but also in visualization and cognitive abilities in children Hutton et al. [2015]. Interestingly, it was suggested that it is not the storytelling itself that is related to these improvements, but it is the interaction during the stories that amplify these abilities in children Twait et al. [2019]. A recent study demonstrated how a group of 4-6-year-old children attending storytelling sessions interactively vs. a group attending non-interactively (storytelling sessions on the screen), shared greater cognitive and language abilities Twait et al. [2019]. Hence, a question was raised regarding this positive effect during interactive (dialogic) storytelling - is the positive effect due to the human interaction?