Abstract
Educational settings have seen an increased presence of intelligent artefacts. Objects such as computers and robots take up new positions along the animate-inanimate continuum due to their substantive “cognitive” and “sensori-motor” repertoires including for example an ability to engage with a diversity of problem-solving tasks and having a memory. In the present study we report children's understanding of a variety of stimulus objects with different anthropomorphic features, including a person, robot, computer and doll. Attributional judgements were elicited from 60 children aged 5–11 and a comparison group of adults. Children were asked for judgements (and justifications) whether the above objects were capable of realising a large number of items drawn from 6 major behavioural categories (e.g., involuntary activity). The data, show that the different objects did not generally elicit substantially different justification patterns. The exception to this is a clear developmental pattern in terms of an increased understanding of the nature of clever artefacts. Results are discussed in terms of different forms of causal reasoning and the specific nature of the act of programming in terms of a growing understanding of the behaviour of intelligent artefacts.
Résumé
Les situations éducatives utilisent de plus en plus d' “artefacts” intelligents. Les objets tels que les ordinateurs et les robots occupent une place particulière sur le continuum animé-inanimé du fait de leurs répertoires “cognitif” et “sensori-moteur”. Ils sont par exemple dotés d'une mémoire et capables de traiter une grande diversité de tâches en résolution de problèmes. La recherche présentée concerne la compréhension qu'ont les enfants d'une variété d'objets-stimulus présentant différentes caractéristiques anthropomorphiques: une personne, un robot, un ordinateur et une poupée. On a sollicité les jugements attributifs de 60 enfants âgés de 5 à 11 ans et comparé ces jugements à ceux d'un groupe d'adultes. On a demandé aux enfants de juger (avec justifications) la capacité des objets ci-dessus à avoir toute une série de comportements regroupés en six catégories principales (par ex. agir involontairement). Les données montrent que, d'une façon générale, les différents objets ne sont pas à l'origine de différences substantielles dans les patterns de justifications. On observe cependant une nette évolution liée à l'âge de la compréhension de la nature des “artefacts” intelligents. Les résultats sont discutés en termes de différentes formes de raisonnement causal. La nature spécifique des actes de programmation est discutée en termes d'accroissement de la compréhension du comportement des artefacts intelligents.
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An ESRC linked studentship to MVD, and ESRC Research Grant No. C08250010 are gratefully acknowledged.
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van Duuren, M., Scaife, M. “Because a robot's brain hasn't got a brain, it just controls itself” — Children's attributions of brain related behaviour to intelligent artefacts. Eur J Psychol Educ 11, 365–376 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03173278
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03173278