Preschoolers’ Motivation to Over‐Imitate Humans and Robots

Autor(en)
Hanna Schleihauf, Stefanie Hoehl, Neli Tsvetkova, Alexander König, Katja Mombaur, Sabina Pauen
Abstrakt

From preschool age, humans tend to imitate causally irrelevant actions-they over-imitate. This study investigated whether children over-imitate even when they know a more efficient task solution and whether they imitate irrelevant actions equally from a human compared to a robot model. Five-to-six-year-olds (N = 107) watched either a robot or human retrieve a reward from a puzzle box. First a model demonstrated an inefficient (Trial 1), then an efficient (Trial 2), then again the inefficient strategy (Trial 3). Subsequent to each demonstration, children copied whichever strategy had been demonstrated regardless of whether the model was a human or a robot. Results indicate that over-imitation can be socially motivated, and that humanoid robots and humans are equally likely to elicit this behavior.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Psychologie der Entwicklung und Bildung
Externe Organisation(en)
Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, University of California, Berkeley, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Leibnitz Institut für Primatenforschung, Universität Heidelberg, New Bulgarian University, University of Waterloo (UW)
Journal
Child Development
Band
92
Seiten
222-238
Anzahl der Seiten
17
ISSN
0009-3920
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13403
Publikationsdatum
01-2021
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
501005 Entwicklungspsychologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Education, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/preschoolers-motivation-to-overimitate-humans-and-robots(c5255d8d-00ae-48cd-8eff-523489c88e38).html