Data from: Social robots as conversational catalysts: Enhancing long-term human-human dyadic interaction at home
Data files
Mar 06, 2025 version files 72.77 KB
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_data-file_-dataset-of-parent-child-conversational-dynamics_(1)_(1).csv
66.58 KB
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dyadic_profile_survey.csv
2.86 KB
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README.md
3.33 KB
Abstract
The integration of social robots into family environments raises critical questions about their long-term influence on family interactions. This study explores the potential of social robots as conversational catalysts in human-human dyadic interaction, focusing on enhancing high-quality, reciprocal conversations between parents and children during dialogic co-reading activities. With the increasing prevalence of social robots in homes and the recognized importance of parent-child exchanges for children's developmental milestones, this work presents a comprehensive empirical investigation involving over 70 parent-child dyads. We examined the effects of three robot interaction styles: a passive robot listener, an active robot with a fixed behavior strategy, and an active robot with a strategy-switching mechanism on parent-child conversational dynamics. Our findings reveal that a robot's active participation enhances the quality of parent-child dialogic conversations. Notably, the impact of robot facilitation varied based on parental English proficiency. Strategy-switching robots provided greater benefits to non-native English-speaking families, while dyads with native English-speaking parents benefited more from fixed-strategy robots. Overall, this study highlights the promise of social robots that empower parents in fostering their children's dialogic development—a contrast to the prevalent design of educational robots that primarily target children. It provides critical insights for the equitable, nuanced design of long-term family-robot interactions at home, especially in supporting diverse family backgrounds.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvsh
This dataset contains data on the conversational dynamics between a parent and child in the robot deployment study. It also contains the demographic profile information of the participants.
Description of the data and file structure
The conversational dynamics consists of six conversational quality indicators. The six columns in the dataset named _data-file_-dataset-of-parent-child-conversational-dynamics_(1)_(1).csv:
- Conv-Time-Dyad: [f]total_time_chat/time_interval.
- the time dyad spent on conversing (in secs)
- Conv-Turns-Dyad: [f]chat_turn_num/time_interval
- the number of turns that took place between the parent and child
- Conv-Time-Parent: [f]total_time_chat_parent/time_interval
- the time parent spent on conversing (in secs)
- Conv-Ratio-Parent: [f]chat/chat+read-P-(words)
- the ratio of the time parent spent on conversing versus conversing + reading
- Conv-Time-Child: [f]total_time_chat_child/time_interval
- the time parent spent on conversing (in secs)
- Conv-Ratio-Child: [f]chat/chat+read-C-(words)
- the ratio of the time parent spent on conversing versus conversing + reading
- Read-Time-Parent: [f]total_time_read_parent/time_interval
- the time parent spent on reading
- Read-Time-Child: [f]total_time_read_child/time_interval
- the time child spent on reading
- Read-Time-Dyad: [f]total_time_read/time_interval
- the time dyad spent on reading
- Note: empty cell(s) indicate the absence of child's or parent's utterances (either conversing or reading), resulting in NaN values for the conversational feature (e.g., Conv-Ratio-Child)
In total 71 participants completed the study
- Participant ID: pID
Participants engaged in one pre-study and post-study assessment sessions and six curriculum sessions.
- Session Number: sID
The study consists of three conditions
- Control: control
- Fixed-Strategy: Fixed
- Strategy-Switching: Adapt
A set of demographic and survey-based features are listed in the data file dyadic_profile_survey.csv
- Child's Gender: SES_child_gender
- Parent's English Proficiency: SES_eng_prof-AssignGROUP
- Parent's Familiarity with Dialogic Reading during Pre-study: READING_dialogic_reading_concept
- 5-point scale with 1 meaning least familiar and 5 meaning most familiar
- Parent's Acceptance of Robot during Pre-study: ROBO_robot_acceptance
- 5-point scale with 1 meaning not accepting at all and 5 meaning fully accepting
- Parent's Acceptance of Educational Technology during Pre-study: ROBO_edtech_acceptance
- 5-point scale with 1 meaning not accepting at all and 5 meaning fully accepting
- Number of Curriculum Videos Watched during Post-study: VIDEO_videos_watched
- Parent's Perceived Usefulness of Videos during Post-study: VIDEO_video_usefulness
- Parent's Perceived Easiness of Applying Dialogic Strategies during Post-Study: VIDEO_applying_strategy
- 5-point scale with 1 meaning very difficult and 5 meaning very easy
- Parent's Perceived Easiness of Understanding Dialogic Strategies in the Videos: VIDEO_strategy_easiness
- 5-point scale with 1 meaning very difficult and 5 meaning very easy