Parle: Curious Robots and Children

This project aimed to test whether children can “catch” curiosity from a social robot. In other words, does playing with a robot that behaves like a curious child make children more curious. So we invited children to play a tablet game with Parle, the DragonBot. Parle, a Personalized Assistive Robot that Learns English, behaved like a curious child, expressing enthusiasm of learning and exploration. We found that indeed, Parle’s curiosity was “contagious”: children playing with it were more curious after the interaction, compared to children playing with a non-curious robot.