Infants' Prediction of Humanoid Robot's Goal-Directed Action

Several studies have shown that infants anticipate human goal-directed actions, but not robot’s ones. However, the studiesfocusing on the robot goal-directed actions have mainly analyzed the effect of mechanical arms on infant’s attention. To date,the prediction of goal-directed actions in infants has not yet been studied when the agent is a humanoid robot. Given thislack of evidence in infancy research, the present study aims at analyzing infants’ action anticipation of both a human’s and ahumanoid robot’s goal-directed action. Data were acquired on thirty 17-month-old infants, watching four video clips, whereeither a human or a humanoid robot performed a goal-directed action, i.e. reaching a target. Infants looking behavior wasmeasured through the eye-tracking technique. The results showed that infants anticipated the goal-directed action of both thehuman and the robot and there were no differences in the anticipatory gaze behavior between the two agents. Furthermore,the findings indicated different attentional patterns for the human and the robot, showing a greater attention paid to the robot’sface than the human’s face. Overall, the results suggest that 17-month-old infants may infer also humanoid robot’ underlyingaction goals.