A recent study published within the explored how the age of preschoolers affected their trust in robots as sources of data. The research was conducted by a team from Concordia University and discovered that while three-year-olds exhibited no preference, five-year-olds were more prone to trust robots as competent teachers.

Experiment Setup and Results

The study divided preschoolers into two groups, consisting of three-year-olds and five-year-olds. Participants attended Zoom meetings featuring a video of a young woman and a humanoid robot, Nao, sitting beside one another with various familiar objects between them. The robot accurately labeled the objects, while the human intentionally provided incorrect labels.

Later, the kids were presented with unfamiliar items and each the robot and the human used nonsense terms to label these objects. When asked what the item was called, three-year-olds showed no preference for the robot’s or human’s label. Nevertheless, five-year-olds were more prone to endorse the term provided by the robot.

Lead creator Anna-Elisabeth Baumann, a PhD candidate, stated, “We will see that by age five, children are selecting to learn from a reliable teacher over someone who’s more familiar to them — even when the competent teacher is a robot.”

The research team also included Horizon Postdoctoral Fellow Elizabeth Goldman, undergraduate research assistant Alexandra Meltzer, and Professor Diane Poulin-Dubois from the Department of Psychology at Concordia University.

Truck-Shaped Robot and Naive Biology Task

The experiment was repeated with latest groups of three- and five-year-olds, this time using a small truck-shaped robot called Cozmo. The outcomes were just like those with the humanoid Nao, indicating that the robot’s appearance didn’t affect children’s selective trust strategies.

The researchers also administered a naive biology task, asking children to discover whether biological organs or mechanical gears made up the interior parts of unfamiliar animals and robots. While three-year-olds appeared unsure, five-year-olds more accurately identified that only mechanical parts belonged contained in the robots.

Baumann explains, “This data tells us that the kids will decide to learn from a robot although they comprehend it will not be like them. They know that the robot is mechanical.”

Implications for Education and Learning

The researchers note that while much literature exists on the advantages of using robots as teaching aids for kids, most studies deal with one robot informant or two robots in competition. Their study, however, compared each human and robot sources to find out if children prioritize social affiliation and similarity over competency when selecting whom to trust and learn from.

Poulin-Dubois highlights that their research builds on a previous paper, showing that by age five, children treat robots in an identical approach to adults. She says, “Older preschoolers know that robots have mechanical insides, but they still anthropomorphize them. Like adults, these children attribute certain human-like qualities to robots, reminiscent of the flexibility to speak, think and feel.”

Elizabeth Goldman emphasizes that robots needs to be regarded as tools to review how children learn from each human and non-human agents. She concludes, “As technology use increases, and as children interact with technological devices more, it will be significant for us to grasp how technology is usually a tool to assist facilitate their learning.”