Understanding the mechanisms and consequences of attributing socialness to artificial agents has important implications for how we can use technology to lead more productive and fulfilling lives. Here, we integrate recent findings on the factors that shape behavioral and brain mechanisms that support social interactions between humans and artificial agents. We review how visual features of an agent, as well as knowledge factors within the human observer, shape attributions across dimensions of socialness. We explore how anthropomorphism and dehumanization further influence how we perceive and interact with artificial agents. Based on these findings, we argue that the cognitive reconstruction within the human observer is likely to be far more crucial in shaping our interactions with artificial agents than previously thought, while the artificial agent's visual features are possibly of lesser importance. We combine these findings to provide an integrative theoretical account based on the "like me" hypothesis, and discuss the key role played by the Theory-of-Mind network, especially the temporal parietal junction, in the shift from mechanistic to social attributions. We conclude by highlighting outstanding questions on the impact of long-term interactions with artificial agents on the behavioral and brain mechanisms of attributing socialness to these agents.

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From automata to animate beings: the scope and limits of attributing socialness to artificial agents.

Social interactions are at the core of social life. However, humans selectively choose their exchange partners and do not engage in all available opportunities for social encounters. In this review, we argue that attentional systems play an important role in guiding the selection of social interactions. Supported by both classic and emerging literature, we identify and characterize the three core processes-perception, interpretation, and evaluation-that interact with attentional systems to modulate selective responses to social environments. Perceptual processes facilitate attentional prioritization of social cues. Interpretative processes link attention with understanding of cues' social meanings and agents' mental states. Evaluative processes determine the perceived value of the source of social information. The interplay between attention and these three routes of processing places attention in a powerful role to manage the selection of the vast amount of social information that individuals encounter on a daily basis and, in turn, gate the selection of social interactions.

How attention gates social interactions.

We investigated whether young children were more likely to spontaneously attribute mental states to members of their own social group than to members of an out-group. We asked 5- and 6-year-old children to describe the actions of interacting geometric shapes and manipulated whether the children believed these shapes represented their own group or another group. Children of both ages spontaneously used mental-state words more often in their description of in-group members compared with out-group members. Furthermore, 6-year-olds produced a greater diversity of mental-state terms when talking about their own social group. These effects held across two different social categories (based on gender and geographic location). This research has important implications for understanding a broad range of social phenomena, including dehumanization, intergroup bias, and theory of mind.

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Young Children Are More Likely to Spontaneously Attribute Mental States to Members of Their Own Group.

Children show signs of intergroup biases from early in development, and evidence suggests that these biases increase through middle childhood. Here we critically review and synthesize the literature on the different types of childhood experiences that have been associated with increases or decreases in childhood intergroup bias. Based on the review, one type of childhood experience stands out as being reliably associated with increased intergroup bias over multiple studies—specific overt messages communicating intergroup conflict with, or negativity from, other groups. Three types of childhood experiences were found to be reliably associated with reduced intergroup bias: (a) structured intergroup contact, (b) explicit education about prejudice, and (c) imagined contact with members of other groups. We highlight the social and policy implications of this work and delineate specific experiences and interventions that might be helpful in ameliorating childhood intergroup biases. We also highlight developmental issues concerning the ways that interventions need to vary to be maximally effective at different ages. Finally, recommendations are offered on key factors to incorporate in childhood intergroup bias interventions, as well as what to avoid when attempting to design such programs due to negative (unintended) consequences. This review attempts to

Childhood Experiences and Intergroup Biases among Children

Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges

We investigated when young children first dehumanize outgroups. Across two studies, 5- and 6-year-olds were asked to rate how human they thought a set of ambiguous doll-human face morphs were. We manipulated whether these faces belonged to their gender in- or gender outgroup (Study 1) and to a geographically based in- or outgroup (Study 2). In both studies, the tendency to perceive outgroup faces as less human relative to ingroup faces increased with age. Explicit ingroup preference, in contrast, was present even in the youngest children and remained stable across age. These results demonstrate that children dehumanize outgroup members from relatively early in development and suggest that the tendency to do so may be partially distinguishable from intergroup preference. This research has important implications for our understanding of children's perception of humanness and the origins of intergroup bias.

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Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces.

We investigated whether encouraging young children to discuss the mental states of an immigrant group would elicit more prosocial behaviour towards them and impact on their perception of a group member's emotional experience. Five- and 6-year-old children were either prompted to talk about the thoughts and feelings of this social group or to talk about their actions. Across two studies, we found that this manipulation increased the extent to which children shared with a novel member of the immigrant group who was the victim of a minor transgression. The manipulation did not lead to greater sharing towards a victim from the children's own culture and did not influence their perception of a victim's negative emotions. These results may ultimately have implications for interventions aimed at fostering positive intergroup relations within the context of immigration.

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Encouraging children to mentalise about a perceived outgroup increases prosocial behaviour towards outgroup members.

We explored the role of parental testimony in children’s developing beliefs about the ontological status of typically unobservable phenomena. US parents and their 5- to 7-year-old children (N = 25 ...

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Beliefs about Unobservable Scientific and Religious Entities are Transmitted via Subtle Linguistic Cues in Parental Testimony

Dehumanization is a complex social phenomenon, intimately connected to intergroup harm and neglect. However, developmental research has only recently started to investigate this important topic. In this chapter, we review research in areas closely related to dehumanization including children's intergroup preferences, essentialist conceptions of social groups, and understanding of relative status. We then highlight the small number of recent studies that have investigated the development of this social bias more directly. We close by making a series of suggestions for future research that will enable us to better understand the nature and causes of this harmful phenomenon.

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Niamh McLoughlin

Papers

Young Children Are More Likely to Spontaneously Attribute Mental States to Members of Their Own Group.

Young children perceive less humanness in outgroup faces.

Encouraging children to mentalise about a perceived outgroup increases prosocial behaviour towards outgroup members.

Beliefs about Unobservable Scientific and Religious Entities are Transmitted via Subtle Linguistic Cues in Parental Testimony

The Developmental Origins of Dehumanization.