The Effect of Simple Emotional Gesturing in a Socially Assistive Robot on Child's Engagement at a Group Vaccination Day

Children encounter high levels of stress and anxiety before receiving medical treatment, such as a vaccination. This paper explores the effect of emotional gesturing in socially assistive robots (SARs) on children’s observed and self-reported engagement, as well as self-reported anxiety, fear, and trust during a group vaccination. A total of 249 children interacted with the social robot iPal before and after receiving the vaccine. Our results show an overall positive effect of adding emotional gestures to a SAR’s interaction behavior leading to increased engagement and lower anxiety, while increased engagement also resulted in trusting the robot more. Thus, adding emotional gestures during child-robot interaction is a powerful way to improve the child’s experience during a group vaccination day.