I don’t know because I’m not a robot : I don’t know because I’m not a robot:A qualitative study exploring moral questions as a way to investigate the reasoning behind preschoolers’ mental state attribution to robots

Portrayals of artificially intelligent robots are becoming increasingly prevalent in children’s culture. This affects how children perceive robots, which have been found to affect the way children in school understand subjects like technology and programming. Since teachers need to know what influences their pupils' understanding of these subjects, we need to know how children’s preconceptions about robots affect the way they attribute mental states to them. We still know relatively little about how children do this. Based on the above, a qualitative approach was deemed fit. This study aimed to (1) investigate the reasoning and preconceptions underlying children’s mental state attribution to robots, and (2) explore the effectiveness of moral questions as a way to do this. 16 children aged 5- and 6 years old were asked to rate the mental states of four different robots while subsequently being asked to explain their answers. Half of the children were interviewed alone and half in small groups. A thematic analysis was conducted to analyze the qualitative data. Children’s mental state attribution was found to be influenced by preconceptions about robots as a group of entities lacking mental states. Children were found to perceive two robots, Atlas, and Nao, differently in various respects. This was argued to be because the children perceived these robots through archetypal frameworks. Moral questions were found successful as a way to spark reflective reasoning about the mental state attribution in the children.