A Robot Is Not Worth Another: Exploring Children’s Mental State Attribution to Different Humanoid Robots

Abstract

Recent technological developments in robotics has driven the design and production of different humanoid robots. Several studies have highlighted that the presence of human-like physical features could lead both adults and children to anthropomorphize the robots. In the present study we aimed to compare the attribution of mental states to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, which differed in the degree of anthropomorphism. Children aged 5, 7, and 9 years were required to attribute mental states to the NAO robot, which presents more human-like characteristics compared to the Robovie robot, whose physical features look more mechanical. The results on mental state attribution as a function of children’s age and robot type showed that 5-year-olds have a greater tendency to anthropomorphize robots than older children, regardless of the type of robot. Moreover, the findings revealed that, although children aged 7 and 9 years attributed a certain degree of human-like mental features to both robots, they attributed greater mental states to NAO than Robovie compared to younger children. These results generally show that children tend to anthropomorphize humanoid robots that also present some mechanical characteristics, such as Robovie. Nevertheless, age-related differences showed that they should be endowed with physical characteristics closely resembling human ones to increase older children’s perception of human likeness. These findings have important implications for the design of robots, which also needs to consider the user’s target age, as well as for the generalizability issue of research findings that are commonly associated with the use of specific types of robots.

Robots Are Not All the Same: Young Adults' Expectations, Attitudes, and Mental Attribution to Two Humanoid Social Robots

“…Several studies have shown that specific facial features (i.e., nose, eyes, and mouth) resembling human ones are particularly important for the perception of the robots' humanlikeness. [8][9][10][11] However, excessive resemblance to the human triggers the Uncanny Valley Effect: the more the appearance of robots is similar to humans, the more is the sense of eeriness. [12][13][14] The human sensitivity to the physical appearance of robots was also found in childhood, [15][16][17][18] in particular, children already at 5 years of age attribute greater mental qualities to a more anthropomorphic robot, that is, the NAO, compared to a more mechanical robot, that is, the Robovie.…”

“…[12][13][14] The human sensitivity to the physical appearance of robots was also found in childhood, [15][16][17][18] in particular, children already at 5 years of age attribute greater mental qualities to a more anthropomorphic robot, that is, the NAO, compared to a more mechanical robot, that is, the Robovie. 10 A recent study classified around 200 HSRs based on their level of human likeness. 19 In this collection, the NAO robot was rated on the human-like factor with a score of 46/100, while the Pepper robot with a score of 42/100.…”

“…27 In particular, the higher level of human likeness of the robot positively influences the attribution of humanlike qualities to the robot. 10,28 Therefore, the positive effect of interaction also depends on the type of robot used.…”

Pragmatics in the False-Belief Task: Let the Robot Ask the Question!

“…Di Dio et al (2020b) shows that 3 years-old children tend to trust humans more than robots, as opposed to 7 years-old children. Manzi et al (2020) showed that children of 5, 7, and 9 years-old differently assign mental states to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, differing on their level of anthropomorphism. It is possible that, for very young children under 3 years-old, the NAO robot may not be the most adequate tool (see Damiano et al, 2015, for a review of the different types of robots).…”

Emerging Adults' Expectations About the Next Generation of Robots: Exploring Robotic Needs Through a Latent Profile Analysis

“…[9][10][11] However, there is still a long way to go in terms of technology to achieve these goals. Despite these technical limitations, several studies have shown that humans attribute human-like qualities to robots even in their current form [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] : this means that people have expectations of robots in terms of performance and interaction possibilities. However, a gap between people's expectations and actual technological advancements of robots could result in less effective human-robot interactions in the future.…”