How do children represent intelligent technology?

There was strong evidence that, across the age range, the computer and the robot were represented as more complex objects and were more likely to be attributed with animate characteristics than the bike.

Abstract

Given the increasingly important role of "clever" technology within primary school setting this study investigated aspects of young children's representation of intelligent (computational) devices. 230 children aged 7 to 11 years were asked to write a story about either a computer, a robot or a control object, a mountain bike. A comparison group of adults was also tested. Stories were analysed in terms of a number of general features including: descriptions of target objects, the use, if at all, of the term "program", and the setting and function of target objects. Furthermore, semantic information as to the ontological status of these objects was derived from an analysis of pronoun and verb-phrase use. There was strong evidence that, across the age range, the computer and the robot were represented as more complex objects and were more likely to be attributed with animate characteristics than the bike. Developmentally, children shifted from describing perceptually salient features of the computer/robot to more abstract features, especially programmability.