Goldman Elizabeth J, Baumann Anna-Elisabeth, Poulin-Dubois Diane
Department of Psychology, Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2023 Feb 6;13:1102370. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1102370. eCollection 2022.
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.
先前的研究就儿童能够始终如一地正确将事物归类为有生命或无生命的年龄得出了相互矛盾的证据。本研究通过一项朴素生物学任务测试了儿童对机器人的有生命性判断。在朴素生物学任务中，研究人员询问3岁和5岁的儿童，机器人、动物或人工制品是否拥有机械或生物内部部件。为了衡量儿童将机器人拟人化的程度与动物和人工制品相比如何，儿童还回答了一系列访谈问题。为了研究形态学的作用，使用了两个机器人：一个人形机器人（Nao）和一个非人形机器人（Dash）。为了研究动态特征的作用，儿童看到一个机器人以目标导向的方式行动（即朝着球移动），另一个机器人表现出非目标导向的行为（即远离球）。两个年龄组的儿童都正确地将生物内部部件归因于动物，将机械内部部件归因于人工制品。然而，3岁的儿童似乎对机器人内部该有什么感到困惑，对生物和机械内部部件的分配是均等的。相比之下，5岁的儿童正确地将机械内部部件归因于两个机器人，无论机器人的形态或目标导向性如何。关于有生命性访谈，当被问及机器人、动物和人工制品的有生命性时，3岁的儿童表现处于随机水平。相比之下，5岁的儿童正确地将有生命性归因于动物，并准确地避免将人工制品和非人形机器人Dash拟人化。然而，5岁的儿童对Nao的回答处于随机水平，这表明他们可能对看起来像人的机器人的心理属性感到困惑。综上所述，这些发现揭示了在学前阶段，儿童在将生物和心理属性归因于社交机器人方面的发展转变。
