title: Children perseverate to a human's actions but not to a robot's actions.
abstract: Previous research has shown that young children commit perseverative errors from their observation of another person's actions. The present study examined how social observation would lead children to perseverative tendencies, using a robot. In Experiment 1, preschoolers watched either a human model or a robot sorting cards according to one dimension (e.g. shape), after which they were asked to sort according to a different dimension (e.g. colour). The results showed that children's behaviours in the task were significantly influenced by the human model's actions but not by the robot's actions. Experiment 2 excluded the possibility that children's behaviours were not affected by the robot's actions because they did not observe its actions. We concluded that children's perseverative errors from social observation resulted, in part, from their socio-cognitive ability.
authors.affiliation: Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo, Japan. moriguchiy@ardbeg.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yusuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Moriguchi
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kanda
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ishiguro
authors.forename: Shoji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Itakura
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012371:Robotics; D012938:Social Perception