Using a personal robot to teach young children.

Seventy-five preschool children were instructed about birds by a human teacher, a moving personal robot, a stationary personal robot, and a tape recorder. How much the children learned and how much attention the children paid were compared for each type of instruction. The children learned when they were taught by the human teacher and when they were taught by the animated and the stationary robots. The children paid more attention to the live teacher and to the moving robot than they did to the stationary robot or to the tape recorder. The difference between the amount of attention the children paid to the animated robot and the amount of attention they paid to the human teacher was not statistically significant.