🤖 Furhat Robot for Language Learning

An HRI Experiment on Children's Language Learning Using the Furhat Social Robot

Human-Robot Interaction Project

Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

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📋 Table of Contents

• Overview
• Research Objective
• The Furhat Robot
• Experiment Design
• Learning Activities
• Implementation
• Project Structure
• Installation
• Usage
• Results
• Conclusions

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🎯 Overview

This project explores how emotional expressiveness in social robots affects language learning outcomes in children. Using the Furhat robot as an English tutor, we compare two interaction modalities: an expressive robot displaying emotions and gestures versus a neutral robot with minimal emotional cues.

The study is grounded in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research, which investigates how humans and robots can effectively communicate and collaborate, particularly in educational contexts.

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🔬 Research Objective

Primary Goal: Demonstrate how a robot's emotional expression influences language learning in children.

Research Questions:

• Does emotional expressiveness improve learning engagement?
• Do children perform better with an expressive vs. neutral robot tutor?
• How do children perceive and respond to different robot personalities?

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🤖 The Furhat Robot

Furhat is a humanoid social robot designed for natural and intuitive communication with humans.

Key Features

Feature	Description
Realistic Facial Expressions	Projected face enables lifelike emotions
Head & Gaze Movement	Natural head tracking and eye contact
Natural Multilingual Voice	Text-to-speech in multiple languages
Social Adaptability	Responds to user behavior and context

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🧪 Experiment Design

Participants

Participant	Age	Focus
Sofia	9 years	English vocabulary & grammar
Christian	6 years	Basic English words

Experimental Conditions

🎭 Expressive Robot	😐 Neutral Robot
• Facial expressions (smiles, winks) • Voice variations (pitch, rate) • Emotional feedback (joy, empathy) • Head movements (nodding)	• Neutral facial expression • Monotone voice • Minimal feedback • No head movements

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📚 Learning Activities

Furhat acts as an English tutor through three interactive exercises:

1. 🔤 Word Repetition

Objective: Child repeats a word proposed by the robot

2. 🔄 Synonyms & Antonyms Quiz

Objective: Child guesses the synonym or antonym of a given word

3. ✏️ Complete the Sentence

Objective: Child completes a sentence with an appropriate word

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💻 Implementation

Development Environment

Tool	Purpose
Furhat SDK	Skill creation and interaction management
Furhat Emulator	Testing robot behavior in simulation
IntelliJ IDEA	Kotlin development IDE

Key Implementation Differences

Aspect	Expressive	Neutral
Facial Expressions	Gestures.BigSmile, Gestures.Nod, Gestures.Wink	None
Voice Tone	furhat.voice.copy(pitch=1.6, rate=0.9)	Standard voice
Motivational Feedback	"You're doing great!", "Wonderful!"	"That's correct.", "Wrong."
Head Movements	Gestures.Nod for encouragement	None

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📁 Project Structure

Furhat-Language-Learning/
│
├── 📂 Englishteacher/                 # 🎭 EXPRESSIVE VERSION
│   ├── assets/
│   │   └── webTemplates/BASIC/        # Web interface templates
│   ├── gradle/wrapper/                # Gradle wrapper files
│   ├── src/                           # Kotlin source code
│   │   └── main/kotlin/furhatos/app/englishteacher/
│   │       ├── main.kt                # Entry point
│   │       ├── flow/                  # Interaction states
│   │       └── nlu/                   # Speech recognition
│   ├── .gitignore
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── build.gradle                   # Build configuration
│   ├── gradlew                        # Gradle wrapper (Unix)
│   ├── gradlew.bat                    # Gradle wrapper (Windows)
│   └── skill.properties               # Skill metadata
│
├── 📂 Neutral/                       # 😐 NEUTRAL VERSION
│   ├── assets/
│   │   └── webTemplates/BASIC/        # Web interface templates
│   ├── gradle/wrapper/                # Gradle wrapper files
│   ├── src/                           # Kotlin source code
│   │   └── main/kotlin/furhatos/app/Neutral/
│   │       ├── main.kt                # Entry point
│   │       ├── flow/                  # Interaction states
│   │       └── nlu/                   # Speech recognition
│   ├── .gitignore
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── build.gradle                   # Build configuration
│   ├── gradlew                        # Gradle wrapper (Unix)
│   ├── gradlew.bat                    # Gradle wrapper (Windows)
│   └── skill.properties               # Skill metadata
│
├── 📄 Presentazione_HRI_EV.pptx       # Project presentation
└── 📄 README.md                       # This file

Folder Description

Folder	Description
Englishteacher/	Expressive Furhat skill with emotions, gestures, and motivational feedback
Neutral/	Neutral Furhat skill with minimal expressions and monotone responses

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🚀 Installation

Prerequisites

1. Furhat SDK (v2.8.0 or later)

   • Download from Furhat Developer Portal

2. IntelliJ IDEA (Community or Ultimate)

   • Download from JetBrains

3. Java JDK 11+

Setup Steps

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/Furhat-Language-Learning.git
   cd Furhat-Language-Learning

2. Install and Start Furhat SDK

   # Launch the Furhat SDK desktop launcher
   ./furhat-sdk-desktop-launcher

3. Start Virtual Furhat

   • Open Furhat SDK Launcher
   • Click "Start Virtual Furhat"
   • Wait for the emulator to load

4. Open a skill in IntelliJ IDEA

   For Expressive Version:

   cd Englishteacher

   For Neutral Version:

   cd Neutral

   • Open IntelliJ IDEA
   • File → Open → Select the skill folder
   • Wait for Gradle sync to complete

5. Build the project

   ./gradlew build

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🎮 Usage

Running the Expressive Skill

1. Navigate to the Englishteacher folder

   cd Englishteacher

2. Run the skill

   ./gradlew run

   Or run directly from IntelliJ IDEA (Run → Run 'main')

3. Interact with Furhat

   • The robot will greet you with expressions and emotions
   • Follow the English learning exercises
   • Receive motivational feedback

Running the Neutral Skill

1. Navigate to the Neutral folder

   cd Neutral

2. Run the skill

   ./gradlew run

3. Interact with Furhat

   • The robot will provide instructions with neutral tone
   • Follow the same exercises with minimal feedback

Web Interface (Optional)

While the skill is running, you can access the control panel:

• Open browser at http://localhost:54321
• Monitor interactions and control the robot manually

Quick Comparison

Command	Expressive	Neutral
Navigate	cd Englishteacher	cd Neutral
Run	./gradlew run	./gradlew run
Expected Behavior	Smiles, nods, encouraging phrases	Monotone, minimal response

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📊 Results

Performance Comparison

Metric	Expressive Furhat	Neutral Furhat
Emotional Engagement	High (wonder, enthusiasm)	Medium-Low
Answer Accuracy	Higher	Lower
Average Response Time	Faster	Slower
Children's Feedback	"It's fun!"	"Not very stimulating"

Key Findings

1. 🎯 Higher Engagement: Children showed significantly more enthusiasm with the expressive robot
2. 📈 Better Performance: Accuracy in language exercises was higher with the expressive tutor
3. ⚡ Faster Responses: Children responded more quickly, suggesting higher motivation
4. 😊 Positive Perception: Children described the expressive robot as "fun" and "friendly"

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💡 Conclusions

This experiment demonstrates that emotional expressiveness in social robots significantly enhances language learning outcomes in children.

Future Work

• Expand participant pool for statistical significance
• Long-term learning retention studies
• Adaptive expressiveness based on child's emotional state

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📄 License

This project is developed for academic purposes as part of the Human-Robot Interaction course at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.