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 studies focusing 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 this lack of evidence in infancy research, the present study aims at analyzing infants' action anticipation of both a human's and a humanoid robot's goal-directed action. Data were acquired on thirty 17-month-old infants, watching four video clips, where either a human or a humanoid robot performed a goal-directed action, i.e. reaching a target. Infants looking behavior was measured through the eye-tracking technique. The results showed that infants anticipated the goal-directed action of both the human 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's face than the human's face. Overall, the results suggest that 17-month-old infants may infer also humanoid robot' underlying action goals.