Researchers from the MIT Media Lab, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Northeastern University used a robotic teddy bear, “Huggable”, across the Boston Children’s Hospital. More than 50 hospitalized children were divided into three groups that involved Huggable, a tablet-based virtual Huggable, or a traditional toy teddy bear. In general, the robotic Huggable improved various patient outcomes over the other two choices.
When first designed, Huggable was operated remotely by a specialist outside a child’ s room for the moment. Through software, a specialist could control the robot’s facial expressions and body actions. The specialists could also talk through a speaker — with their voice automatically changed to sound more childlike — and monitor the participants via camera.
During the treatments involving Huggable for kids aged 3 to 10 years, a specialist would sing nursery rhymes to younger children through the robotic bear and move the arms during the song. Older kids would play the I Spy game, where they had to guess an object in the room described by the specialist through Huggable. Through self-reports and questionnaires, the researchers recorded how much the patients and families liked Huggable. A greater percentage of children and their parents reported that the children enjoyed playing with Huggable more than with the virtual figure or traditional teddy bear.
The study proved the possibility of including Huggable in the treatments for children. Results also showed that children playing with Huggable experienced more positive emotions overall. They also got out of bed and moved around more, and emotionally connected with the robot, asking it personal questions and inviting it to come back later to meet their families. “Such improved emotional and physical outcomes are all positive factors that could contribute to hospitalized children’ s better and faster recovery,” the researchers write in their study.
The study also provided a basis for developing a fully autonomous Huggable robot, which is the researchers’ final goal. In the future, that automated robot could be used to improve children’ s further treatment and care, and monitor their well-being.
【小题1】What can we learn about Huggable?| A．It was first designed for disabled kids. |
| B．It can make facial expressions. |
| C．It talks like a caring parent. |
| D．It works automatically. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Conventional. |
| C．Disappointing. | D．Unhelpful. |
| A．It improved their mental experience. |
| B．It protected them from possible virus. |
| C．It gave tips on taking good care of young patients. |
| D．It provided up-to-date information about their diseases. |
| A．The fast development of robots in medical area. |
| B．A new technology in medicine to treat children. |
| C．Robots’ advantages over other methods of treatment. |
| D．A robotic teddy bear used in caring for hospitalized children. |
