Social Robotics

Nico is a robot designed to function like a typical nine month old baby. This robot will be used in child psychology experiments to study social development. This Yale University project will hopefully be used to detect autism in the first year of life.

The development of social robotics will make observations normally conducted by video interactive in nature. The subject will be observed through the eyes of the robot. Social robotics can be used to systematically measure specific social cues one step at a time.

Nico is in development but there are hopes that social robotics will be able to determine how normal babies develop social skills. One of the most interesting aspects of social robotics is that the approach can be used to study self image as well.

Nico is unique in that it is programmed to measure human responses and compare those responses to a norm.