How do young children deal with hybrids of living and non-living things: the case of humanoid robots.
In this experiment, we tested children's intuitions about entities that bridge the contrast between living and non-living things. Three- and four-year-olds were asked to attribute a range of properties associated with living things and machines to novel category-defying complex artifacts (humanoid robots), a familiar living thing (a girl), and a familiar complex artifact (a camera). Results demonstrated that 4-year-olds tended to treat the category-defying entities like members of the inanimate group, while 3-year-olds showed more variability in their responding. This finding suggests that preschoolers' ability to classify complex artifacts that cross the living-non-living divide becomes more stable between the ages of 3 and 4 and that children at both ages draw on a range of properties when classifying such entities.
Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203, USA. m.saylor@vanderbilt.edu
Megan M
MM
Saylor
Mark
M
Somanader
Daniel T
DT
Levin
Kazuhiko
K
Kawamura
D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D019545:Intuition / Q000502:physiology; D019369:Life; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012371:Robotics