Designing motivational robot: How robots might motivate children to eat fruits and vegetables

Abstract

This study contribute toward the creation of social robots as personal and public assistants. The ability of the robot to persuade and motivate people to follow a given behavior is of particular relevance in several cases, especially those related to people's health recover and maintenance (e.g., personal trainer, diet coach, etc.). In this paper, we evaluated the effect of a humanoid robot's use of verbal and bodily features and behaviors in motivating 80 children (age: 8–9 years old) in following healthier lifestyles (namely eat more fruit and vegetables). The results confirmed the hypothesis that the use of such motivational cues significantly improves the persuasiveness of the robot. Moreover the results highlighted a higher impact of the verbal cues implementations, which is in contrast with previous studies.