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://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/c5255d8d-00ae-48cd-8eff-523489c88e38