Abstract:Social robots for children with autism are often evaluated through engagement and interaction quality, assuming the robot acts as a social scaffold. We report a mixed-methods "withdrawal" study that tests a harder question: what changes when the robot is removed. In an 8-week home-based randomized controlled trial (N=40), children either retained a consumer social robot (Qrobot) or had it withdrawn after initial use. Quantitatively, continued access reduced anxiety (SCARED/RCADS), yet was associated with lower parent-reported social motivation and weaker gains in emotion recognition (SMS/RMET) compared to withdrawal. Interviews with guardians contextualized this divergence: removal sometimes prompted children to seek human interaction, while continued use could keep social behavior siloed within the child-robot dyad, despite exceptionally high usability (SUS). We synthesize a UXR point of view: for vulnerable users, "engagement" can mask ecological downsides. Success should be judged not by retention, but by designed separation that bridges back to human relationships.
From: Yibo Meng [view email] [via Huseyin Dogan as proxy]
[v1]
Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:10:40 UTC (1,036 KB)
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理，仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。