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Can Children Catch Curiosity from a Social Robot?
Open accessAbstract
Curiosity is key to learning, yet school children show wide variability in their eagerness to acquire information. Recent research suggests that other people have a strong influence on children's exploratory behavior. Would a curious robot elicit children's exploration and the desire to find out new things? In order to answer this question we designed a novel experimental paradigm in which a child plays an education tablet app with an autonomous social robot, which is portrayed as a younger peer. We manipulated the robot's behavior to be either curiosity-driven or not and measured the child's curiosity after the interaction. We show that some of the child's curiosity measures are significantly higher after interacting with a curious robot, compared to a non-curious one, while others do not. These results suggest that interacting with an autonomous social curious robot can selectively guide and promote children's curiosity.
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“Previously, social robots have been shown to promote curiosity and engagement in children (Gordon et al., 2015; Park et al., 2017), and it would be valuable to explore such functionality with older adults.”
From Personal Narratives in Technology Design: The Value of Sharing Older Adults’ Stories in the Design of Social Robots (2021) · cites this paper as Gordon et al., 2015
In the citing paper
“This strategy is inspired from studies such as [16] where authors show that children do not engage in curiositydriven behaviors mainly because they fail to see the uncertainties they have about their own knowledge.”
From GPT-3-Driven Pedagogical Agents to Train Children’s Curious Question-Asking Skills (2024) · cites this paper as [16]
In the citing paper
“we choose to maintain the linguistic help (i.e. the questioning word that can be used to start the question) for our three conditions as question-generation tasks can be quite difficult for children, as shown in [16].”
From GPT-3-Driven Pedagogical Agents to Train Children’s Curious Question-Asking Skills (2024) · cites this paper as [16]
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“For example, robots can stimulate children ’ s curiosity and creativity (Ali et al., 2019a; Gordon, Breazeal, Engel, 2015).”
BackgroundHow a Social Robot’s Vocalization Affects Children’s Speech, Learning, and Interaction
Wright, L. L., Kothiyal, A., Arras, K. O., & Bruno, B. (2022) · IEEE RO-MAN · doi:10.1109/ro-man53752.2022.9900811 · Cited by 9
“…et al. [7] showed that in a reciprocal peer learning task with a social robot, engaging in both tutor and tutee roles can be beneficial for vocabulary acquisition, while Gordon et al. [8] explored how a robot’s displayed curiosity towards a child’s teaching could heighten the child’s own curiosity.”
BackgroundTowards Automatic Generation of Peer-Targeted Science Talk in Curiosity-Evoking Virtual Agent
Paranjape, B., Ge, Y., Bai, Z., Hammer, J., & Cassell, J. (2018) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) · doi:10.1145/3267851.3267894 · Cited by 9
“Peer scaffolding has been shown to support positive development in children for curiosity [17], growth of mind [38] and social interaction [6].”
BackgroundLeusmann, J., Villa, S., Berberoglu, B., Wang, C., & Mayer, S. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713087 · Cited by 10
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Jung, S., Ahn, S. H., Ha, J., & Bahn, S. (2022) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph191710988 · Cited by 11
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Ayalon, O., Hok, H., Shaw, A., & Gordon, G. (2023) · International Journal of Social Robotics · doi:10.1007/s12369-023-01047-4 · Cited by 10
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BackgroundMethodSelf-citationThe curiosity of educators from two cultural groups: Implications to professional development
Birenbaum, M., & Alhija, F. N.-A. (2020) · Teaching and Teacher Education · doi:10.1016/j.tate.2020.103150 · Cited by 8
Belhassein, K., Castro, V. F., & Mayima, A. (2020) · Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications · doi:10.3233/faia200916 · Cited by 8
“In school-age children, curiosity can be seen as a key element to improve efficient learning [25], and recent studies have demonstrated that a robot exhibiting a curious behavior positively impacted children’s curiosity and engagement in the task [26,27].”
BackgroundSinha, T., Bai, Z., & Cassell, J. (2017) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-66610-5_20 · Cited by 8
“Even research that has looked at the effect of peers on curiosity has looked into mostly dyadic contexts rather than small group, used a limited strategy repertoire for eliciting curiosity-related behavior based on theory rather than empirical data, and subjectively assessed success of those strategies post-hoc using…”
MethodSong, S., Baba, J., Okafuji, Y., Nakanishi, J., Yoshikawa, Y., & Ishiguro, H. (2024) · International Journal of Social Robotics · doi:10.1007/s12369-024-01119-z · Cited by 7
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Alves‐Oliveira, P., Arriaga, P., Hoffman, G., & Paiva, A. (2016) · doi:10.5555/2906831.2906996 · Cited by 7
Social Robots as Physical Curiosity Assessment Tools
Epstein, M., & Gordon, G. (2018) · IEEE RO-MAN · doi:10.1109/roman.2018.8525790 · Cited by 7
“In [4], children played with a social robot companion, which behaves either as a curious agent, expressing enthusiasm of learning, or as non-curious agent.”
BackgroundSelf-citationArtificial Intelligence in Intelligent Tutoring Robots: A Systematic Review and Design Guidelines
Yang, J., & Zhang, B. (2019) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1903.03414 · Cited by 7
“ing interaction, showing that physical embodiment and personalisation can yield significant benefits in educational human-robot interactions, hence producing measurable learning gains. The authors of [60, 61] explore the social robot capability of improving students curiosity, while those of [62] use hints and distrac…”
BackgroundDevasia, N., Ali, S., & Breazeal, C. (2020) · Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play · doi:10.1145/3383668.3419895 · Cited by 10
“Research in human-robot interactions has demonstrated how interaction with social robots can promote positive learning behaviors in children through social emulation, such as curiosity, verbal creativity, and growth mindset [1, 10, 24].”
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Cervera, R. L., Wang, M. Z., & Hayden, B. Y. (2020) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/znrbf · Cited by 7
Preschoolers' Scientific Curiosity and Inquiry Capabilities: An Ecological Research Approach
Baruch, Y. K., Mevarech, Z. R., & Spektor‐Levy, O. (2025) · Journal of Research in Science Teaching · doi:10.1002/tea.70019 · Cited by 6
Abdelghani, R., Law, E., Desvaux, C., Oudeyer, P., & Sauzeon, H. (2023) · ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) · doi:10.1145/3585088.3593880 · Cited by 8
“For example, studies such as in [11, 5] showed that implementing interactions with social robots that exhibit curious behaviors had significant positive effects on children’s own curiosity.”
BackgroundBlind Trust: How Making a Device Humanoid Reduces the Impact of Functional Errors on Trust
Vattheuer, C., Baecker, A. N., Geiskkovitch, D. Y., Seo, S. H., Rea, D. J., & Young, J. E. (2020) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-62056-1_18 · Cited by 7
Towards measuring states of epistemic curiosity through electroencephalographic signals
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Song, S., Baba, J., Okafuji, Y., Nakanishi, J., Yoshikawa, Y., & Ishiguro, H. (2024) · IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters · doi:10.1109/lra.2024.3354555 · Cited by 7
“This allows them to be used in many everyday environments, including to provide information [7], [8], in education [9], [10], [11], in healthcare [12], [13], and in domestic settings [14], [15], [16].”
BackgroundToward Understanding Pedagogical Relationship in Human-Robot Interaction
Okazaki, H., Kanai, Y., Ogata, M., Hasegawa, K., Ishii, K., Imai, M., & CREST, J. S. A. T. A. (2016) · Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics · doi:10.20965/jrm.2016.p0069 · Cited by 6
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Moawad, R. A. (2017) · International Education Studies · doi:10.5539/ies.v10n3p116 · Cited by 6
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“One existing approach here is to develop robots with a set of hand-designed questions, comments and statements (Gordon et al., 2015; Ceha et al., 2019).”
BackgroundInfluentialTHE PERCEPTION OF ROBOT'S EMOTIONAL GESTURES AND SPEECH BY CHILDREN SOLVING A SPATIAL PUZZLE
Zinina, A., Zaidelman, L., Kotov, A. A., & Arinkin, N. A. (2020) · Computational Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies · doi:10.28995/2075-7182-2020-19-811-826 · Cited by 8
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ResultA Novel Multimodal Approach for Studying the Dynamics of Curiosity in Small Group LearningPreprint
Sinha, T., Zhen, B., & Cassell, J. (2021) · EdArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.35542/osf.io/rfxwg · Cited by 8
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Kim, D. Y. J., Ravi, P., Williams, R., & Yoo, D. (2024) · Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference · doi:10.1145/3628516.3659392 · Cited by 7
“Previous research has highlighted the benefits of AI tutors and robotic mediators in enhancing student learning and fostering creativity, with intelligent agents proving instrumental in promoting self-efficacy and reflective practices [2, 7, 9, 10, 15, 18].”
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“In this manner, AI’s artificial curiosity is “driven” by intrinsic motivation for maximum learning that engages reinforcement learning, in which intrinsic rewards are proportional to their learning progress [19, 21].”
Groechel, T. R., Goktan, I., Ly, K., Velentza, A.-M., & Matarić, M. J. (2023) · IEEE RO-MAN · doi:10.1109/ro-man57019.2023.10309312 · Cited by 5
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Eshed, M., Epstein, M., Zohar, A. H., & Gordon, G. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.669198 · Cited by 5
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Boulicault, M., Phillips-Brown, M., Kory-Westlund, J. M., Nguyen, S., & Breazeal, C. (2023) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/13654.003.0011 · Cited by 5
Self-citationExpressive Cognitive Architecture for a Curious Social Robot
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Can Children Take Advantage of Nao Gaze-Based Hints During GamePlay?
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Can Social Robots Improve People’s Attitudes toward Individuals Who Stutter?
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User Interface for Child-Robot Interaction in Education: Perspective and Challenges
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BackgroundDancing with a Robot: An Experimental Study of Child-Robot Interaction in a Performative Art Setting
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Facial Expression Recognition in the Wild with Application in Robotics
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“This approach resonates with prior studies indicating that social robots can serve as facilitators of curiosity by modeling exploratory behaviors (Gordon et al., 2015) or initiating curiosity-related interactions (Shiomi et al., 2015).”
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Weatherwax, K., Dooley, D., Carstensdóttir, E., & Takayama, L. A. (2024) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) · doi:10.1145/3652988.3673920 · Cited by 1
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“Son zamanlarda insans robotlar yap sal özelliklerinden dolay çok farkl sosyal alanlarda çevreleriyle veya insanlarla daha fazla etkile im kurabilecek f rsat elde etmektedir [3-5].”
BackgroundDigital Quantitative Assessment of Question-Asking-Based Exploration.
Tor, N., & Gordon, G. (2018) · International Association for Development of the Information Society · Cited by 1
Self-citationHuman Communicative Behavior While Solving Tangram Puzzles for Subsequent Transfer to a Robot
Zinina, A., Zaidelman, L., Arinkin, N. A., & Kotov, A. A. (2021) · Advances in intelligent systems and computing · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-71637-0_74 · Cited by 1
NIMBUS: A Hybrid Cloud-Crowd Realtime Architecture for Visual Learning in Interactive DomainsPreprint
DePalma, N., & Breazeal, C. (2016) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1602.07641 · Cited by 1
“…past, our architecture has forked into two separate initiatives: one in which emphasizes the ability to take advantage of small, embedded, and ever improving smartphones [5], [6], [7] and an architecture that emphasizes its ability to operate across small and large scale computer systems [8], [9].”
BackgroundSelf-citationBuilding Pedagogical Relationships Between Humans and Robots in Natural Interactions
Okazaki, H., Kanai, Y., Ogata, M., Hasegawa, K., Ishii, K., & Imai, M. (2015) · International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI) · doi:10.1145/2814940.2814941
“It is important for a robot teacher to have the following functions: control of its behavior and facial expression [7], touch interaction with children [15], the ability to praise and stimulate children [8], and the ability to express curiosity to children [6].”
BackgroundSocial robots for creativity stimulation in children
Alves‐Oliveira, P., Arriaga, P., Hoffman, G., & Paiva, A. (2019)
Designing Games for Enabling Co-creation with Social AgentsPreprint
Ali, S., Devasia, N., & Breazeal, C. (2021) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.00201 · Cited by 3
“Social robots can also be effective peers that lead to measurable learning gains [17], and can promote positive learning behaviors in children through social emulation, such as curiosity, verbal creativity, and growth mindset [1, 8, 22].”
BackgroundSelf-citationThe Effectiveness of Using Blindfold Games to Improve Students’ Vocabulary
Lisanty, F. I. (2022) · BATARA DIDI English Language Journal · doi:10.56209/badi.v1i2.37
Designing Personalized Pedagogical AI Agents to Support Children's Exploratory Learning
Zhang, X. (2023) · XRDS Crossroads The ACM Magazine for Students · doi:10.1145/3611680
“In the control condition, the robot’s”
BackgroundKoornneef, S. A., Bradbury, J. S., Miljanovic, M. A., & Sturdee, M. (2025) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-02591-3_3
García, G. A., Laycock-Narayan, R. K., Pérez, G., Amores, J. G., Álvarez, G. S., Castro-Malet, M., & Gómez, R. (2025) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-981-95-2398-6_17
It's LeviOsa, Not LevioSA: How Intentional Robot Mistakes Can Impact Children's Reading Skills
Ceranic, H. K., Patel, D. D., Rosén, J., & Geiskkovitch, D. Y. (2025) · International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI) · doi:10.1145/3765766.3765796
“For example, robot errors can decrease children’s trust in robots [11] and lead to greater engagement in the learning task [19].”
Reflections on Children, Digital Culture, and AI
Yust, K. (2026) · Religious Education · doi:10.1080/00344087.2025.2609035
“They may also become a kind of invisible companion, inspiring creativity, curiosity, and imagination (Gordon, Breazeal, and Engel 2015).”
TutorBotz: A GenAI Tool for Teachers to Program Social Robots as Teacher Assistants
Botzer, B. H., Gordon, G., & Gordon-Kiwkowitz, M. (2026) · ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) · doi:10.1145/3776734.3794386
Self-citationDeveloping an Integrated Behavioral Framework for Social Robots Promoting Children’s Soft Skills
Yi, Z., & Gordon, G. (2026) · ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) · doi:10.1145/3776734.3794356
Self-citationBelhassein, K. (2021) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/f4d36796z2b61z4cd3zbf91zeda88e221a76
Hattori, T., Fujita, S., & Kobayashi, T. (2026) · ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) · doi:10.1145/3773077.3812136
Kalkan, S., & Öz, A. Ş. (2026) · Research in Autism · doi:10.1016/j.reia.2026.202969
Toward Democratic Curiosity: On the Role of Political Disagreement in Political Dialogue
Obradović, S. (2026) · Theory and history in the human and social sciences · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-26797-9_6 · Cited by 1
Metadata
- Authors
- Gordon, G., Breazeal, C., & Engel, S.
- Affiliations
- MIT Media Lab (US)
- Williams College (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2015-03-02
- Pages
- 91-98
- OpenAlex
- W1994475294
- Cited by
- 193
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 21.69
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (publishedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Other univ. web domain
- Funders
- NSF (CCF-1138986)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Educational Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- curiosity, social robots, children, exploratory behavior, peer interaction, autonomous robots, student motivation
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