Robot watchfulness hinders learning performance

Educational technological applications, such as computerized learning environments and robot tutors, are often programmed to provide social cues for the purposes of facilitating natural interaction and enhancing productive outcomes. However, there can be potential costs to social interactions that could run counter to such goals. Here, we present an experiment testing the impact of a watchful versus non-watchful robot tutor on children's language-learning effort and performance. Across two interaction sessions, children learned French and Latin rules from a robot tutor and filled in worksheets applying the rules to translate phrases. Results indicate better performance on the worksheets in the session in which the robot looked away from, as compared to the session it looked toward the child, as the child was filling in the worksheets. This was the case in particular for the more difficult worksheet items. These findings highlight the need for careful implementation of social robot behaviors to avoid counterproductive effects.