Educational Robotics in the Service of the Gestalt Similarity Principle

Today, many technological approaches, including educational robotics (ER), enrich the teaching process through gamification. Several studies have shown that educational activities with robots lead to increased student interest, a positive and more effective learning process, and several different skills. This paper adopts a content-based image retrieval mechanism to automate the Gestalt similarity testing process and evaluates the impact of the involvement of a humanoid robot. The proposed framework aims to improve participants' visual perception, cultivate their creativity, and improve their visual working memory. During a pilot study, the participants communicate with the proposed framework either by using a tablet or by interacting with a humanoid NAO robot. The experimental results showed that the participation of NAO significantly increased the interest, attention, and commitment of the students.