Developing affect-aware robot tutors

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2015.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Spaulding, Samuel Lee
Other Authors: Cynthia Breazeal.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98616
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author Spaulding, Samuel Lee
author2 Cynthia Breazeal.
author_facet Cynthia Breazeal.
Spaulding, Samuel Lee
author_sort Spaulding, Samuel Lee
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description Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2015.
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spelling mit-1721.1/986162022-01-18T17:08:58Z Developing affect-aware robot tutors Spaulding, Samuel Lee Cynthia Breazeal. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences. Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences. Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2015. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 44-47). In recent years there has been a renewed enthusiasm for the power of computer systems and digital technology to reinvent education. One-on-one tutoring is a highly effective method for increasing student learning, but the supply of students vastly outpaces the number of available teachers. Computational tutoring systems, such as educational software or interactive robots, could help bridge this gap. One problem faced by all tutors, human or computer, is assessing a student's knowledge: how do you determine what another person knows or doesn't know? Previous algorithmic solutions to this problem include the popular Bayesian Knowledge Tracing algorithm and other inferential methods. However, these methods do not draw on the affective signals that good human teachers use to assess knowledge, such as indications of discomfort, engagement, or frustration. This thesis aims to make understanding affect a central component of a knowledge assessment system, validated on a dataset collected from interactions between children and a robot learning companion. In this thesis I show that (1) children emote more when engaging in an educational task with an embodied social robot, compared to a tablet and (2) these emotional signals improve the quality of knowledge inference made by the system. Together this work establishes both human-centered and algorithmic motivations for further development of robotic systems that tightly integrate affect understanding and complex models of inference with interactive, educational robots. by Samuel Lee Spaulding. S.M. 2015-09-17T18:59:53Z 2015-09-17T18:59:53Z 2015 2015 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98616 920474060 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 47 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.
Spaulding, Samuel Lee
Developing affect-aware robot tutors
title Developing affect-aware robot tutors
title_full Developing affect-aware robot tutors
title_fullStr Developing affect-aware robot tutors
title_full_unstemmed Developing affect-aware robot tutors
title_short Developing affect-aware robot tutors
title_sort developing affect aware robot tutors
topic Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98616
work_keys_str_mv AT spauldingsamuellee developingaffectawarerobottutors