When children are faced with multiple information providers, what kind of individuals do they choose to trust? It is known that both the cognitive characteristics (such as reliability, competence) and social characteristics (such as status within a group) of information providers can influence children's choices of whom to trust. Existing research has shown that older children prioritize cognitive characteristics and prefer to learn from more competent information providers.
So, when faced with a reliable robot versus an unreliable human, will preschool children still choose to learn from the competent robot due to the accuracy of information? Or will they prefer the more familiar human?
According to a study by researchers at Concordia University published in the Journal of Cognition and Development, five-year-old children are more inclined to seek help from robots.
Reliable robot VS Unreliable human
The study compared two groups of preschool children: one group consisted of three-year-olds, and the other group was made up of five-year-olds. The children participated in the test via Zoom meetings, where a video showed a young woman and a humanoid NAO robot sitting side by side. Between them were placed familiar objects, with the robot correctly labeling these objects, while the human provided incorrect labels, such as calling a car a book, a ball a shoe, and a cup a dog.
Next, both groups of children were presented with unfamiliar items: a part of a turkey baster, a roll of twine, and a muffin container. Both the robot and the human used different nonsense words, such as "mido," "toma," "fep," to label these items. The children were then asked the names of the objects, and they either endorsed the labels provided by the robot or those provided by the human.
The three-year-olds did not show a preference for either word, while the five-year-olds were more inclined to endorse the vocabulary provided by the robot rather than the human.
"We can see that by the age of five, children will choose to learn from a competent teacher rather than from someone they are more familiar with—even if the competent teacher is a robot," said Anna-Elisabeth Baumann, the doctoral student and author of the paper. Therefore, despite humans being more social and capable of establishing a social connection with children, the children still chose to seek help from the robot. The researchers repeated the experiment with another group of three-year-olds and five-year-olds and reached similar conclusions.
Baumann added that in addition to the labeling task, the researchers also conducted a simple biology task. The children were asked whether biological organs or mechanical gears made up the internal parts of unfamiliar animals and robots. The three-year-olds were confused and thought that both biological organs and mechanical gears belonged to the robot. However, the five-year-olds were more likely to believe that only mechanical parts belonged inside the robot.
"These data tell us that children will choose to learn from a robot, even if they know the robot is mechanical—even if they know the robot is different from them," Baumann said.
Robots as Learning Tools:How Children Perceive Them
Despite the abundance of literature on the benefits of using robots as teaching assistants for children, the researchers note that most studies have focused on a single robot information provider or two competing robots.
This study is the first to use both humans and robots simultaneously to observe which information provider children would trust and learn from, and to explore whether children consider social belongingness and similarity to be more important than competence when making their choices.
Additionally, Baumann's previous research had also found that by the age of five, children treat robots similarly to adults, viewing them as social entities.
"Older preschool children know that robots have mechanical internal structures, but they still anthropomorphize them. Like adults, these children attribute certain human-like qualities to robots, such as the ability to speak, think, and feel," she said.
"It is important to emphasize that we view robots as tools to study how children learn from both human and non-human agents," the researchers concluded. As the use of technology increases and children interact more with technological devices, understanding how technology can become a tool to help facilitate children's learning is undoubtedly very important.
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