The Role of the Experimenter in HRI Research - A Case Study Evaluation of Children with Autism Interacting with a Robotic Toy

The general context of the work presented in this paper is assistive robotics with our long-term aim to support children with autism. This paper is part of an investigation into what ways and to what extent a robot can assume the role of a social mediator - encouraging autistic children to interact with the robot, with each other and with co-present adults. The article focuses on the role of the experimenter in these triadic interactions, and provides a case study evaluation of segments of trials where a robot mediated both indirect and direct interactions between children with autism and the experimenter