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ERIC Number: EJ906903
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Nov
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
Reference Count: 0
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0261-510X
How Do Young Children Deal with Hybrids of Living and Non-Living Things: The Case of Humanoid Robots
Saylor, Megan M.; Somanader, Mark; Levin, Daniel T.; Kawamura, Kazuhiko
British Journal of Developmental Psychology, v28 n4 p835-851 Nov 2010
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.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: N/A