A Robotic Companion for Psychological Well-being: A Long-term Investigation of Companionship and Therapeutic Alliance.

Social support plays a crucial role in managing and enhancing one's mental health and well-being. In order to explore the role of a robot's companion-like behavior on its therapeutic interventions, we conducted an eight-week-long deployment study with seventy participants to compare the impact of (1) a with only assistant-like skills, (2) a with additional instructive positive psychology interventions, and (3) a that delivered the same interventions in a peer-like and supportive manner. The companion-like robot was shown to be the most effective in building a positive therapeutic alliance with people, enhancing participants' well-being and readiness for change.

Flat vs. Expressive Storytelling: Young Children's Learning and Retention of a Social Robot's Narrative.

Prior research with preschool children has established that dialogic or active book reading is an effective method for expanding young children's vocabulary. In this exploratory study, we asked whether similar benefits are observed when a robot engages in dialogic reading with preschoolers. Given the established effectiveness of active reading, we also asked whether this effectiveness was critically dependent on the expressive characteristics of the robot.