'''Article:''' The Role of the Experimenter in HRI Research – A Case Study Evaluation of Children with Autism Interacting with a Robotic Toy by Ben Robins and Kerstin Dautenhahn

'''Introduction to paper:'''

The experimenter is commonly invisible, or not present, from the experiments. In this case the experimenter is a “passive participant” - ready to interact with the subject if ever approached by him/her. In these experiments, the child played with Robota (the doll robot) and involved the experimenter in many unexpected ways - for example, one time a boy noticed that the experimented was controlling the robot, so he looked & laughed at the experimenter (as opposed to the robot) when the experimenter made the robot do something funny.

'''Application to personal research:'''

It sounds like children involve the experimenter more when they know that he/she is the one controlling the robot. The child has interest in the robot, then learns that the experimenter is in control of the robot, which transfers interest from the robot to the experimenter. The experimenter becomes “a friend of a friend” so to speak. I think it would be good to allow the child to develop interest in the robot alone, first, and THEN realize that the clinician is in charge of the robot.

'''Questions:'''

• When is the best time to reveal to a child that the clinician is controlling the robot?

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