Higher Nonverbal Immediacy Leads to Greater Learning Gains in Child-Robot Tutoring Interactions

Abstract. Nonverbal immediacy has been positively correlated with cognitive learning gains in human-human interaction, but remains rela-tively under-explored in human-robot interaction contexts. This paper presents a study in which robot behaviour is derived from the principles of nonverbal immediacy. Both high and low immediacy behaviours are evaluated in a tutoring interaction with children where a robot teaches how to work out whether numbers are prime. It is found that children who interact with the robot exhibiting more immediate nonverbal be-haviour make significant learning gains, whereas those interacting with the less immediate robot do not. A strong trend is found suggesting that the children can perceive the differences between conditions, supporting results from existing work with adults.