Of children and social robots

Abstract

In the target article, Clark and Fischer argue that little is known about children's perceptions of social robots. By reviewing the existing literature we demonstrate that infants and young children interact with robots in the same ways they do with other social agents. Importantly, we conclude children's understanding that robots are artifacts (e.g., not alive) develops gradually during the preschool years.

Children's anthropomorphism of inanimate agents

“…Do children believe all agents are like them? In commentaries to Clark and Fisher's article, developmental psychologists have addressed the developmental origins of when children see non-human agents (e.g., robots) as depictions of social agents and as learning sources (Goldman, Baumann, & Poulin-Dubois, 2023b;Haber & Corriveau, 2023). Importantly, a body of work suggests that infants treat any non-human agent (e.g., boxes, geometric shapes) that displays animate motion patterns as human-like (Baillargeon, Scott, & Bian, 2016) but gradually understand what is alive and what is not.…”