Infants' perceptions of cooperation between a human and robot

摘要

Abstract Cooperation is fundamental to human society; thus, it may come as little surprise that by their second birthdays, infants are able to perceive when two human agents are working together towards a shared goal. However, far less is known about whether infants view nonhuman agents as being capable of cooperative shared goals. Thirteen‐month‐old infants were habituated to a cooperative interaction involving a human and robot agent as they worked to remove a toy from inside a box. While previous research suggests that infants readily structure the actions of human cooperative partners as being towards a shared goal, surprisingly infants in the current study did not extend their expectations about cooperation when a robot agent was present. These findings contribute to our understanding of the nature of infants' developing notions of goal‐directed behaviour and are the first examination of infants' perceptions of cooperation involving robotic agents.