Remote control and children’s understanding of robots

Somanader, Mark C.; Saylor, Megan M.; Levin, Daniel T.

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2011.01.005

Cited by 30 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Current HRI research exploring animacy offers mixed indications concerning the development of children's perceptions of robots as (in)animate (see [6] for an overview). Studies point towards aspects of Carey's model of conceptual change [4] but others offer contrasting outcomes (e.g., young children have shown both consistent [7] and inconsistent [8] animacy beliefs about a robot dog).…”

Section: Children's Understanding Animacy In Hrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Age Influences Their Use of Biological and Mechanical Questions Towards a Humanoid

Cameron

Fernando

Cowles-Naja

et al. 2017

Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems

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ReuseUnless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version -refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher's website. TakedownIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request.Children's age influences their use of biological and mechanical questions towards a humanoid Abstract. Complex autonomous interactions, biomimetic appearances, and responsive behaviours are increasingly seen in social robots. These features, by design or otherwise, may substantially influence young children's beliefs of a robot's animacy. Young children are believed to hold naive theories of animacy, and can miscategorise objects as living agents with intentions; however, this develops with age to a biological understanding. Prior research indicates that children frequently categorise a responsive humanoid as being a hybrid of person and machine; although, with age, children tend towards classifying the humanoid as being more machine-like. Our current research explores this phenomenon, using an unobtrusive method: recording childrens conversational interaction with the humanoid and classifying indications of animacy beliefs in childrens questions asked. Our results indicate that established findings are not an artefact of prior research methods: young children tend to converse with the humanoid as if it is more animate than older children do.

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Section: Children's Understanding Animacy In Hrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Age Influences Their Use of Biological and Mechanical Questions Towards a Humanoid

Cameron

Fernando

Cowles-Naja

et al. 2017

Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems

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“…The script incorporated several features that were designed to maintain similarity with previous studies using human recipients. However, several studies have shown that people's perception of and behavior toward robots depend on robots' physical and behavioral cues (e.g., Bartneck et al, 2007;Somanader et al, 2011;Srinivasan and Takayama, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Supporting this idea are studies showing that both adults (Fukuda and Ueda, 2010) and children (Somanader et al, 2011) attribute more animacy (i.e., lifelikeness; properties of living beings) to a robot that moves autonomously and in a goaldirected way than to a robot that is tele-operated. Horstmann et al (2018) showed that this effect of autonomy may not be restricted to the robot's movements, but may also apply to its verbal behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young Children’s Indiscriminate Helping Behavior Toward a Humanoid Robot

et al. 2020

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Young children help others in a range of situations, relatively indiscriminate of the characteristics of those they help. Recent results have suggested that young children's helping behavior extends even to humanoid robots. However, it has been unclear how characteristics of robots would influence children's helping behavior. Considering previous findings suggesting that certain robot features influence adults' perception of and their behavior toward robots, the question arises of whether young children's behavior and perception would follow the same principles. The current study investigated whether two key characteristics of a humanoid robot (animate autonomy and friendly expressiveness) would affect children's instrumental helping behavior and their perception of the robot as an animate being. Eighty-two 3-year-old children participated in one of four experimental conditions manipulating a robot's ostensible animate autonomy (high/low) and friendly expressiveness (friendly/neutral). Helping was assessed in an out-of-reach task and animacy ratings were assessed in a post-test interview. Results suggested that both children's helping behavior, as well as their perception of the robot as animate, were unaffected by the robot's characteristics. The findings indicate that young children's helping behavior extends largely indiscriminately across two important characteristics. These results increase our understanding of the development of children's altruistic behavior and animate-inanimate distinctions. Our findings also raise important ethical questions for the field of child-robot interaction.

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“…Current HRI research offers mixed indications concerning children's perceptions of robots as animate beings [20,21]. Studies point towards aspects of Carey's model of conceptual change [5] but offer contrasting outcomes.…”

Section: Animacy In Hrimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Somanader and colleagues report that children aged four or five attribute fewer living properties to a robot with a mechanical appearance, if its complex, goal-directed behavior is revealed to be controlled by a human [21]. These findings are mirrored in adult HRI, where goal-directed movement supports perceptions of animacy, unless the user is directing the same robot towards a goal [29].…”

Section: Animacy In Hrimentioning

confidence: 99%

You Made Him Be Alive: Children’s Perceptions of Animacy in a Humanoid Robot

Cameron

Fernando

Collins

et al. 2017

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. Social robots are becoming more sophisticated; in many cases they offer complex, autonomous interactions, responsive behaviors, and biomimetic appearances. These features may have significant impact on how people perceive and engage with robots; young children may be particularly influenced due to their developing ideas of agency. Young children are considered to hold naive beliefs of animacy and a tendency to mis-categorise moving objects as being alive but, with development, children can demonstrate a biological understanding of animacy. We experimentally explore the impact of children's age and a humanoid's movement on children's perceptions of its animacy. Our humanoid's behavior varied in apparent autonomy, from motionless, to manually operated, to covertly operated. Across conditions, younger children rated the robot as being significantly more person-like than older children did. We further found an interaction effect: younger children classified the robot as significantly more machine-like if they observed direct operation in contrast observing the motionless or apparently autonomous robot. Our findings replicate field results, supporting the modal model of the developmental trajectory for children's understanding of animacy. We outline a program of research to both deepen the theoretical understanding of children's animacy beliefs and develop robotic characters appropriate across key stages of child development.

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Remote control and children’s understanding of robots

Cited by 30 publications

References 18 publications

Children’s Age Influences Their Use of Biological and Mechanical Questions Towards a Humanoid

Children’s Age Influences Their Use of Biological and Mechanical Questions Towards a Humanoid

Young Children’s Indiscriminate Helping Behavior Toward a Humanoid Robot

You Made Him Be Alive: Children’s Perceptions of Animacy in a Humanoid Robot

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