A recent study led by Lauren Wright, a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago, has examined how robots might help children who experience anxiety when reading aloud in educational settings. The research was conducted with collaborators from the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of Wisconsin–Madison and originated from Assistant Professor Sarah Sebo’s Human-Robot Interaction Lab at UChicago.
The transition from learning to read to reading to learn is often a stressful period for many children. Reading aloud in class is meant to build fluency and confidence, but it can also create anxiety that affects literacy development over time. The study explored whether technology could assist students in these situations.
“Children seem to feel more comfortable making mistakes in front of a robot than a human adult,” said Sebo. “[They] may be able to learn with robots in a unique and potentially beneficial way—free of anxiety. Rather than being worried about making a mistake in front of a person, children could focus more of their mental resources on learning the subject material in front of them.”
The research involved 52 children aged eight to eleven, each reading stories aloud under three conditions: alone, to an adult, and to a robot named Misty. During these sessions, researchers monitored vocal jitter, heart rate variability, and facial temperature as indicators of anxiety.
The results showed that when reading to Misty the robot, children displayed fewer physical signs of anxiety compared to when they read to an adult. Their voices were steadier and their heart rates were less rigid.
“Physiological measures give us a more unbiased understanding of a person’s internal state of mind—for example, very few of us can intentionally control our own heart rates,” Wright explained. She added that survey responses are sometimes less reliable for children. “In educational research, we can use these techniques to study not just how students learn under different conditions, but also how the act of learning makes them feel.”
Children’s comments reflected these findings. One participant said “the robot was less stressful ... the robot is easier because you feel less judged because robots don’t have feelings.” Another noted: “Even when I made a mistake, I knew it couldn’t be mad at me.”
Most participants preferred reading with the robot due to its nonjudgmental presence and straightforward feedback style. However, some found aspects such as its mechanical voice unsettling or disliked its design, suggesting that careful consideration will be needed if such robots are used regularly in classrooms.
Despite differences in anxiety levels, researchers did not find significant changes in reading comprehension between sessions with humans and those with robots. According to the authors, “the anxiety-mitigating effects of reading to the robot did not come at the expense of comprehension.”
The findings support previous suggestions within human-robot interaction research that robots may provide social benefits in situations where people feel vulnerable or anxious. Beyond education, similar technologies could be used in other contexts where individuals face barriers due to nervousness or fear—for example, helping patients communicate with doctors or supporting beginners learning new skills.
“Ideally, the difficulty of practicing any skill should come from the challenge of the skill itself, not our fear of practicing,” Wright said.
“Robots occupy a very useful niche—just social enough to give us feedback, but not so social that we’re concerned about being judged. For people who avoid learning new skills because they’re nervous about how they look or sound as a beginner, robots might be one way to practice in a safe space until they gain more confidence.”
This article was originally published on the UChicago Department of Computer Science website.