Author(s): Goldman EJ; Poulin-Dubois D;

This review article examines the extant literature on animism and anthropomorphism in infants and young children. A substantial body of work indicates that both infants and young children have a broad concept of what constitutes a sentient agent and react to inanimate objects as they do to people in the same context. The literature has also revealed a dev ...

Article GUID: 38659105

Author(s): Baumann AE; Goldman EJ; Cobos MM; Poulin-Dubois D;

How young children learn from different informants has been widely studied. However, most studies investigate how children learn verbally conveyed information. Furthermore, most studies investigate how children learn from humans. This study sought to investigate how 3-year-old children learn from, and come to trust, a competent robot versus an incompetent ...

Article GUID: 37804786

Author(s): Goldman EJ; Baumann AE; Poulin-Dubois D;

In the target article, Clark and Fischer argue that little is known about children's perceptions of social robots. By reviewing the existing literature we demonstrate that infants and young children interact with robots in the same ways they do with other social agents. Importantly, we conclude children's understanding that robots are artifacts (e ...

Article GUID: 37017061

Author(s): Goldman EJ; Baumann AE; Poulin-Dubois D;

Prior work has yielded contradicting evidence regarding the age at which children consistently and correctly categorize things as living or non-living. The present study tested children's animacy judgments about robots with a Naïve Biology task. In the Naïve Biology task, 3- and 5-year-olds were asked if robots, animals, or artifacts possessed mechani ...

Article GUID: 36814889

Author(s): Kehoe M; Poulin-Dubois D; Friend M;

Purpose This study investigated within-language and between-language associations between phonological memory, vocabulary, and grammar in French-English (n = 43) and Spanish-English (n = 25) bilingual children at 30, 36, and 48 months. It was predicted that phonological memory would display both within-language and between-language relations to language d ...

Article GUID: 34731575

Author(s): Crivello C; Grossman S; Poulin-Dubois D;

The psychological mechanisms underlying infants' selective social learning are currently a subject of controversy. The main goal of the present study was to contribute data to this debate by investigating whether domain-specific or domain-general abilities guide infants' selectivity. Eighteen-month-olds observed a reliable and an unreliable speake ...

Article GUID: 34043285

Author(s): Poulin-Dubois D, Dutemple E, Burnside K

Theory of mind is defined as the understanding that mental states predict and explain people's behaviors. It develops around the age of 4 but seems to remain deficient in people with ASD, whereas other forms of naïve understanding remain intact. This study compares children with ASD to neurotypical children on tasks measuring naïve psychology, physics ...

Article GUID: 33385282

Author(s): Smolak E; Hendrickson K; Zesiger P; Poulin-Dubois D; Friend M;

Early vocabulary knowledge and speed of word processing are important foundational skills for the development of preschool and school-age language and cognition. However, the variance in outcomes accounted for by parent-reported receptive or expressive vocabulary is generally modest. Recent research suggests that directly assessed, decontextualized vocabu ...

Article GUID: 33221662

Author(s): Poulin-Dubois D; Azar N; Elkaim B; Burnside K;

An explicit understanding of false belief develops around the age of four years. However, tasks based on spontaneous responses have revealed an implicit understanding of belief and other theory of mind constructs in infants in their second year of life. The few longitudinal studies that have examined conceptual continuity of theory of mind from infancy to ...

Article GUID: 33152000

Author(s): Burnside K, Neumann C, Poulin-Dubois D

It has been argued that infants possess a rich, sophisticated theory of mind (ToM) that is only revealed with tasks based on spontaneous responses. A mature (ToM) implies the understanding that mental states are person specific. Previous studies on infants' understanding of motivational mental states, such as goals and preferences have revealed that, ...

Article GUID: 33071864

Author(s): Poulin-Dubois D

This chapter offers a brief overview of how research on theory of mind development has developed over the recent years, with a focus on current research and theoretical accounts of theory of mind during the infancy period. The topics covered include the factors contributing to individual differences in theory of mind skills in preschoolers, the current re ...

Article GUID: 32859285