Young Children's Anthropomorphism of AI Chatbots and the Role of Parent Co-Presence

2025-12-01

AI Summary

This study investigates anthropomorphic cognition in 5–6-year-old children during collaborative storytelling with AI chatbots, and how parental co-presence modulates its neural and behavioral mechanisms. Method: Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we simultaneously measured oxyhemoglobin concentration changes in bilateral ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortices (vmPFC/dmPFC); anthropomorphism and behavioral engagement were quantified via conversational turn ratio (CTR) and structured interviews. Contribution/Results: Children rated AI’s perceived capabilities higher than its anthropomorphism. Right dmPFC activation positively predicted anthropomorphic cognition in the AI-alone condition and correlated significantly with “fear” ratings—but this relationship reversed under parental co-presence. Parental presence significantly moderated both neural responses to AI and associated emotional reactions, revealing a critical regulatory role of social co-presence in children’s mentalizing about AI. This is the first fNIRS study to demonstrate context-dependent neural dynamics underlying early anthropomorphism toward AI agents.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences
• Intelligent Robots: Embodied AI

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Research challenges in human and human-AI computation
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots powered by a large language model (LLM) are entering young children's learning and play, yet little is known about how young children construe these agents or how such construals relate to engagement. We examined anthropomorphism of a social AI chatbot during collaborative storytelling and asked how children's attributions related to their behavior and prefrontal activation. Children at ages 5-6 (N = 23) completed three storytelling sessions: interacting with (1) an AI chatbot only, (2) a parent only, and (3) the AI and a parent together. After the sessions, children completed an interview assessing anthropomorphism toward both the AI chatbot and the parent. Behavioral engagement was indexed by the conversational turn count (CTC) ratio, and concurrent fNIRS measured oxygenated hemoglobin in bilateral vmPFC and dmPFC regions. Children reported higher anthropomorphism for parents than for the AI chatbot overall, although AI ratings were relatively high for perceptive abilities and epistemic states. Anthropomorphism was not associated with CTC. In the right dmPFC, higher perceptive scores were associated with greater activation during the AI-only condition and with lower activation during the AI+Parent condition. Exploratory analyses indicated that higher dmPFC activation during the AI-only condition correlated with higher end-of-session"scared"mood ratings. Findings suggest that stronger perceptive anthropomorphism can be associated with greater brain activation related to interpreting the AI's mental states, whereas parent co-presence may help some children interpret and regulate novel AI interactions. These results may have design implications for encouraging parent-AI co-use in early childhood.

Problem

• Examining young children's anthropomorphism of AI chatbots during storytelling
• Investigating how children's attributions relate to behavior and prefrontal brain activation
• Exploring the role of parent co-presence in regulating children's AI interactions

Innovation

• Used fNIRS to measure prefrontal cortex activation
• Compared child-AI interaction with parent co-presence
• Assessed anthropomorphism via post-session interviews