'''Article:''' Robots as Assistive Technology - Does Appearance Matter? by Ben Robins, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ren´e te Boekhorst, and Aude Billard

'''Introduction to paper:'''

An adult and an autistic child would play with a robotic doll, together. For some children the doll would be fully covered (like the Theatrical Robot study) but for others it would be dressed as a normal doll. Children accepted the plain, fully-covered doll quicker than the normally dressed doll - however, over time, both dolls were accepted.

'''Application to personal research:'''

It seems that both appearances are eventually accepted (if the object is obviously classified as a predictable toy) but that the more detailed the object is the more apprehensive the child will be <i>at first</i>. If Pleo, or another robot, isn't quickly accepted by children, that doesn't necessarily mean that it won't ever be. It might be good to break up TiLAR research into phases, like they did.

'''Questions:'''

• Is familiarization necessary? It seems like it would be a good idea, to encourage children to interact with the robot, without it acting too unpredictable at first.
• <i>DOES</i> appearance matter if both dolls are eventually accepted anyway? It doesn't sound like it makes a significant different.

'''Additional notes from paper:'''

• Triad of impairment was defined, again.
• It was mentioned that autistic children don't demonstrate much eye contact and don't get involved in interactive games much.
• They performed their research in three phases: familiarization (child becomes aware of robot), learning (child is taught what the robot can do), and free interaction (the child initiates play with the robot).
• They chose to evaluate success based on the child's: eye gaze to, imitation of, touching, and proximity to, the robot.

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