Young Learner's Companion 

Developing robots' growth mindset and pro-curious behavior and fostering the same in young learners via long-term interaction

A growth mindset and curiosity have significant impact on children's academic and social achievements. We are developing and evaluating a novel expressive cognitive-affective architecture that synergistically integrates models of curiosity, understanding of mindsets, and expressive social behaviors to advance the state-of the-art of robot companions. In doing so, we aim to contribute major advancements in the design of AI algorithms for artificial curiosity, artificial mindset, and their verbal and non-verbal expressiveness in a social robot companion for children. In our longitudinal study, we aim to evaluate the robot companion's ability to sustain engagement and promote children's curiosity and growth mindset for improved learning outcomes in an educational play context.