Children’s imaginaries of human-robot interaction in healthcare

This paper analyzes children’s imaginaries of Human-Robots Interaction (HRI) in the context of social robots in healthcare, and it explores ethical and social issues when designing a social robot for a children’s hospital. Based on approaches that emphasize the reciprocal relationship between societ...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Vallès Peris, Núria, Angulo Bahón, Cecilio|||0000-0001-9589-8199, Domènech Argemí, Miquel
Format: article
Publication Date:2018
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repository:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/119236
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/119236
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15050970
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Human-robot interaction
Children--Hospitals
imaginaries
social robots
children’s hospital
participatory process
ethics of care
Interacció persona-ordinador
Hospitals infantils
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Automàtica i control
Description
Summary:This paper analyzes children’s imaginaries of Human-Robots Interaction (HRI) in the context of social robots in healthcare, and it explores ethical and social issues when designing a social robot for a children’s hospital. Based on approaches that emphasize the reciprocal relationship between society and technology, the analytical force of imaginaries lies in their capacity to be embedded in practices and interactions as well as to affect the construction and applications of surrounding technologies. The study is based on a participatory process carried out with six-year-old children for the design of a robot. Imaginaries of HRI are analyzed from a care-centered approach focusing on children’s values and practices as related to their representation of care. The conceptualization of HRI as an assemblage of interactions, the prospective bidirectional care relationships with robots, and the engagement with the robot as an entity of multiple potential robots are the major findings of this study. The study shows the potential of studying imaginaries of HRI, and it concludes that their integration in the final design of robots is a way of including ethical values in it