Maintaining an interaction with others is important for child development. A humanoid robot is expected to be a tolerant partner of communication with the sense of face-to-face and the ease of talking because of its effective but reduced human-like presence. Therefore, it would support child development by maintaining conversations to establish social relationship with them. In this paper, previous studies are introduced that synthesize specific scenes of human-robot conversation with relatively short periods and have investigated the extent that robots can be easy for humans to talk to, whether they can establish social relationship with humans, or how they can support human development. Through these discussions, the author aims to explore the possibilities and value of robots that are capable of establishing a long-term social relationship with children beyond the current technological achievements.

This article discusses the interdisciplinary field of social robotics, which involves robotics, artificial intelligence, psychology, and other disciplines to create robots capable of interacting with humans in a natural and intuitive way. Social robots can be used in various fields, such as domestic, educational, care, and rehabilitation. Psychology plays a key role in development of social robot, as it deals with studying and understanding the cognitive and behavioral processes that regulate human interactions. Developmental Cybernetics (DC) is an approach that focuses on understanding the processes by which children discover the minds of others, including those of non-human agents, such as robots. DC is based on three fundamental theories: Theory of Body, Theory of Mind, and Theory of Communication. DC provides insights into children’s psychological development in relation to robotic agents and contributes to the implementation of social robots.

Research in developmental robotics includes modeling human intelligence and the process of its emergence in robotic systems. A novel research paradigm in psychology is emerging in conjunction with such efforts regarding the reproduction of human-specific communication abilities in robots and observing how children interact with robots with various degrees of communication capabilities. In this paper, such research trends are reviewed from a broader perspective, and the potential to realize robots that afford children the opportunities to build social relationships is examined. We consider human communication abilities not as a set of interactive functionalities in individuals but as a set of social tools in which functionalities have emerged from the social interaction driven by the individual motivation to form relationships with others. We also explore some representative works on using robots to help establish such relationships in autistic children and typically developing children. Finally, we discuss the possibility of using robots for further research and practical support for child development centered on building social relationships.

This paper introduces our research series on “moral interaction” with social robots. We believe that human-like social robots have a significant potential to enhance individuals’ daily life via their natural interaction capabilities. In fact, these robots have generally been well-received by most users. However, we have observed instances in which these robots face bullying and aggression from some users, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “robot abuse.” Why does robot abuse occur? How can robots overcome this problem and foster positive moral interaction, thereby improving people’s behavior, much like we do with each other?

This paper focuses on children’s abusive behaviors toward robots (i.e., robot abuse) and addiction for communicating with robots (i.e., robot addiction) as a negative aspect of the relationship between robots and children in a future society in which robots will have their own bodies and the functions of autonomous decision-making and behaviors will pervasively act in humans’ daily life such as home, schools, hospitals, restaurants, and stations. How robot abuse and addiction can happen and what negative influences these phenomena then have on children are discussed. Finally, the paper proposes how adults and society should correspond for these problems to prevent children from experiencing these negative aspects.

This article discusses research on the use of “social robots” in early language education. The paper consists of three main sections. The first section briefly describes what social robots are and provides the theoretical rationale for their applicability in language education. The second section introduces different empirical works, while highlighting established findings and the gaps in the literature. Finally, drawing on my recent research on gestures and individual differences, I discuss the prospects of language education and child–robot interaction (CRI) and provide recommendations for future research. Social robots have the potential to meet needs that human teachers or other digital devices cannot. However, research remains limited and is in the phase of exploring different possibilities. The lack of clear support for the effectiveness of social robots should be considered a good research opportunity. I invite scholars from diverse backgrounds to join this critical and exciting effort.

Supporting children’s learning activities is one promising application for social robots. This paper introduces several systems that support storytelling and English learning for children by using multiple robots and a person identification system for such support. For this purpose, we developed a system that integrates a positioning system by using depth and acceleration sensors to anonymously gather the trajectories of people. Moreover, we conducted experiments on children to investigate how multiple robots are better than a single robot in the context of supporting children’s learning activity. The experiment’s results showed the advantages of using multiple robots such as motivation improvement and acceptableness.

Children are likely to believe objects that can move and have a face could be living things. This tendency is observed in young children and in older children and some adults. In this paper, the author reviewed studies involving children’s animism and discussed children’s animism tendencies toward robots. First, the author discussed word choices (e.g., “alive,” “living things,” and “animate”) to examine children’s animism tendencies and cultural backgrounds that could have an influence on inconsistent results noted between classic and recent studies. Second, the author discussed whether children believe robots are living things and suggested distinguishing animism errors exhibited by younger children from other animism tendencies (i.e., agentic and personified/general animism) exhibited by older children and adults. Third, the author presented some evidence that children treat robots and humans/animals similarly and differently and reviewed how children and adults personify/anthropomorphize robots. Finally, the author suggested suitable robots for children, with a discussion on gender stereotypes and the uncanny valley effects toward robots.