Preschoolers’ anthropomorphizing of robots: Do human-like properties matter?

Abstract

Prior work has yielded contradicting evidence regarding the age at which children consistently and correctly categorize things as living or non-living. The present study tested children’s animacy judgments about robots with a Naïve Biology task. In the Naïve Biology task, 3- and 5-year-olds were asked if robots, animals, or artifacts possessed mechanical or biological internal parts. To gauge how much children anthropomorphize robots in comparison to animals and artifacts, children also responded to a set of interview questions. To examine the role of morphology, two robots were used: a humanoid robot (Nao) and a non-humanoid robot (Dash). To investigate the role of dynamic characteristics, children saw one robot behave in a goal-directed manner (i.e., moving towards a ball) and one robot exhibit non-goal-directed behavior (i.e., moving away from a ball). Children of both age groups correctly attributed biological insides to the animal and mechanical insides to the artifact. However, 3-year-olds seemed confused about what belonged inside both robots and assigned biological and mechanical insides equally. In contrast, 5-year-olds correctly assigned mechanical insides to both robots, regardless of the robot’s morphology or goal-directedness. Regarding the Animacy Interview, 3-year-olds performed at chance level when asked about the animacy of robots, animals, and artifacts. In contrast, 5-year-olds correctly attributed animacy to animals and accurately refrained from anthropomorphizing artifacts and the non-humanoid robot Dash. However, 5-year-olds performed at chance for Nao, suggesting they may be confused about the psychological properties of a human-looking robot. Taken together, these findings reveal a developmental transition during the preschool years in the attribution of biological and psychological properties to social robot.

The Effects of Social Presence and Familiarity on Children–Robot Interactions

“…As mentioned earlier, the children's social cognition of robots changes drastically within the age range of 5-12 (e.g., [16,20,21]). However, except for one study [40], such a phenomenon has rarely entered the scope of existing CRI research investigating the interaction outcomes.…”

“…Critically, the existing literature suggests that children's social cognition displays significant variability based on the developmental stages. For example, 5-year-old children would attribute a humanoid robot alive at chance level [20]. On the other hand, children aged 7-9 have increased their sensitivity to robots' social presence given the different anthropomorphic features (e.g., mechanical and humanoid [16]).…”

“…Previous work indicates that children's impression of a robot's social presence varies significantly among each other [16,20,21] and is positively related to the instant childrenrobot relationships [2,28,30,33,34,61]. However, how variation in social presence affects relationships have been largely overlooked by long-term CRI research (e.g., [17,55,62]).…”

Of children and social robots

“…A developmental shift in children's categorization of social robots was found: 5-year-olds believed that a humanoid robot (Nao) had mechanical insides, but 3-year-olds equally attributed mechanical and biological insides to the humanoid robot. This finding held when 3-year-olds were presented with a non-humanoid robot (Cozmo) (Goldman et al, in press).…”

“…Future work could build upon these findings by testing infants in a related task with robots. In a similar vein, recent work has examined how children conceptualize robots with a naïve biology task (Goldman, Baumann, & Poulin-Dubois, in press). Using a modified version of Gottfried and Gelman's (2005) task, children were shown images of robots, unfamiliar animals, and artifacts and asked to select whether something biological (e.g., heart) or mechanical (e.g., gears) belonged inside.…”