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Taniguchi K, Okanda M. Children's animistic beliefs toward a humanoid robot and other objects. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 244:105945. [PMID: 38729060 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2023] [Revised: 03/13/2024] [Accepted: 03/27/2024] [Indexed: 05/12/2024]
Abstract
This study examined children's beliefs about a humanoid robot by examining their behavioral and verbal responses. We investigated whether 3- and 5-year-old children would treat the humanoid robot gently along with other objects and tools with and without a face and whether 3- and 5-year-olds would attribute moral, perceptual, and psychological properties to these targets. Although 3-year-olds did not treat objects gently or rudely, they were likely to affirm that hitting targets was acceptable despite targets having psychological and perceptual properties. Thus, 3-year-olds' perception of the targets was incongruent with their behavior toward them. Most 5-year-olds treated a robot gently and were likely to affirm the robot's psychological characteristics. Behaviors and perceptions of the robot differed between 3- and 5-year-olds. Thus, children may start believing that robots are not alive at age five, and they can distinguish them from other objects even when the latter have faces. Developmental changes in children's animistic beliefs are also discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mako Okanda
- Otemon Gakuin University, Osaka 567-8502, Japan.
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Goldman EJ, Poulin-Dubois D. Children's anthropomorphism of inanimate agents. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2024; 15:e1676. [PMID: 38659105 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1676] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024]
Abstract
This review article examines the extant literature on animism and anthropomorphism in infants and young children. A substantial body of work indicates that both infants and young children have a broad concept of what constitutes a sentient agent and react to inanimate objects as they do to people in the same context. The literature has also revealed a developmental pattern in which anthropomorphism decreases with age, but social robots appear to be an exception to this pattern. Additionally, the review shows that children attribute psychological properties to social robots less so than people but still anthropomorphize them. Importantly, some research suggests that anthropomorphism of social robots is dependent upon their morphology and human-like behaviors. The extent to which children anthropomorphize robots is dependent on their exposure to them and the presence of human-like features. Based on the existing literature, we conclude that in infancy, a large range of inanimate objects (e.g., boxes, geometric figures) that display animate motion patterns trigger the same behaviors observed in child-adult interactions, suggesting some implicit form of anthropomorphism. The review concludes that additional research is needed to understand what infants and children judge as social agents and how the perception of inanimate agents changes over the lifespan. As exposure to robots and virtual assistants increases, future research must focus on better understanding the full impact that regular interactions with such partners will have on children's anthropomorphizing. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Learning Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Computer Science and Robotics > Robotics.
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Baumann AE, Goldman EJ, Cobos MGM, Poulin-Dubois D. Do preschoolers trust a competent robot pointer? J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 238:105783. [PMID: 37804786 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105783] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Revised: 08/09/2023] [Accepted: 09/07/2023] [Indexed: 10/09/2023]
Abstract
How young children learn from different informants has been widely studied. However, most studies investigate how children learn verbally conveyed information. Furthermore, most studies investigate how children learn from humans. This study sought to investigate how 3-year-old children learn from, and come to trust, a competent robot versus an incompetent human when competency is established using a pointing paradigm. During an induction phase, a robot informant pointed at a toy inside a transparent box, whereas a human pointed at an empty box. During the test phase, both agents pointed at opaque boxes. We found that young children asked the robot for help to locate a hidden toy more than the human (ask questions) and correctly identified the robot to be accurate (judgment questions). However, children equally endorsed the locations pointed at by both the robot and the human (endorse questions). This suggests that 3-year-olds are sensitive to the epistemic characteristics of the informant even when its displayed social properties are minimal.
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Shen J, Tang G, Koyama S. Robot occupations affect the categorization border between human and robot faces. Sci Rep 2023; 13:19250. [PMID: 37935780 PMCID: PMC10630393 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-46425-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 11/09/2023] Open
Abstract
The Uncanny Valley hypothesis implies that people perceive a subjective border between human and robot faces. The robot-human border refers to the level of human-like features that distinguishes humans from robots. However, whether people's perceived anthropomorphism and robot-human borders are consistent across different robot occupations remains to be explored. This study examined the robot-human border by analyzing the human photo proportion represented by the point of subjective equality in three image classification tasks. Stimulus images were generated by morphing a robot face photo and one each of four human photos in systematically changed proportions. Participants classified these morphed images in three different robot occupational conditions to explore the effect of changing robot jobs on the robot-human border. The results indicated that robot occupation and participant age and gender influenced people's perceived anthropomorphism of robots. These can be explained by the implicit link between robot job and appearance, especially in a stereotyped context. The study suggests that giving an expected appearance to a robot may reproduce and strengthen a stereotype that associates a certain appearance with a certain job.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junyi Shen
- University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, Tsukuba, 305-8574, Japan
| | - Guyue Tang
- University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, Tsukuba, 305-8574, Japan
| | - Shinichi Koyama
- University of Tsukuba, Institute of Art and Design, Tsukuba, 305-8574, Japan.
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Zhou K, Lan L, Yan Z. Human's moral judgements towards different social actors: A cross-sectional study. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023; 41:343-357. [PMID: 37553814 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 05/01/2023] [Indexed: 08/10/2023]
Abstract
The proliferation of artificial intelligence may pose new challenges to people's moral judgements. We examined moral judgements towards different social actors and their influencing factors in children, adolescents and adults. Moral judgements were measured with ship problems which will ask participants whether they would choose to save humans, dogs, humanoid robots or animaloid robots. Results showed that (1) both adolescents and adults considered humans morally most important, followed by dogs, humanoid robots and animaloid robots. Children have not yet developed the tendency to morally prioritize humanoid robots over animaloid robots; (2) Individuals' moral judgements are influenced by their age, anthropomorphism and animacy of social actors; (3) With the development of individuals, animacy of social actors always have a greater impact on individuals' moral judgements than anthropomorphism of social actors. Findings indicated that the concept of moral judgement is more complex in the era of artificial intelligence and requires more attention from developmental psychology researchers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ke Zhou
- Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
| | - Luo Lan
- Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
| | - Zhiqiang Yan
- Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
- Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
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Goldman EJ, Baumann AE, Poulin-Dubois D. Preschoolers' anthropomorphizing of robots: Do human-like properties matter? Front Psychol 2023; 13:1102370. [PMID: 36814889 PMCID: PMC9940712 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1102370] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2022] [Accepted: 12/30/2022] [Indexed: 02/09/2023] Open
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.
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Barber O, Somogyi E, McBride EA, Proops L. Exploring the role of aliveness in children's responses to a dog, biomimetic robot, and toy dog. COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2023.107660] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
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Thellman S, de Graaf M, Ziemke T. Mental State Attribution to Robots: A Systematic Review of Conceptions, Methods, and Findings. ACM TRANSACTIONS ON HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION 2022. [DOI: 10.1145/3526112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
The topic of mental state attribution to robots has been approached by researchers from a variety of disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy. As a consequence, the empirical studies that have been conducted so far exhibit considerable diversity in terms of how the phenomenon is described and how it is approached from a theoretical and methodological standpoint. This literature review addresses the need for a shared scientific understanding of mental state attribution to robots by systematically and comprehensively collating conceptions, methods, and findings from 155 empirical studies across multiple disciplines. The findings of the review include that: (1) the terminology used to describe mental state attribution to robots is diverse but largely homogenous in usage; (2) the tendency to attribute mental states to robots is determined by factors such as the age and motivation of the human as well as the behavior, appearance, and identity of the robot; (3) there is a
computer < robot < human
pattern in the tendency to attribute mental states that appears to be moderated by the presence of socially interactive behavior; (4) there are conflicting findings in the empirical literature that stem from different sources of evidence, including self-report and non-verbal behavioral or neurological data. The review contributes toward more cumulative research on the topic and opens up for a transdisciplinary discussion about the nature of the phenomenon and what types of research methods are appropriate for investigation.
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Okanda M, Taniguchi K. How do children answer questions from a physically present humanoid robot? INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2300] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Mako Okanda
- Graduate School of Psychology Otemon Gakuin University Ibaraki Osaka Japan
| | - Kosuke Taniguchi
- Faculty of Child Care and Education Osaka University of Comprehensive Children Education Osaka Japan
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McHugh SR, Callanan MA, Weatherwax K, Jipson JL, Takayama L. Unusual artifacts: Linking parents'
STEM
background and children's animacy judgments to
parent–child
play with robots. HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/hbe2.286] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
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Okanda M, Taniguchi K. Is a robot a boy? Japanese children’s and adults’ gender-attribute bias toward robots and its implications for education on gender stereotypes. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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