Young children’s social cognition and learning in an increasingly technological world

In our current world, children are interacting with technologies that look, talk, and act like social agents. Are children willing to treat such technologies as they do humans agents, as if they possess thoughts, feelings, experiences, and even moral status? What are the implications for learning in early childhood, which depends on evolutionarily ancient mechanisms of trust and cooperation? In this talk I will present some recent work from our lab that explores these questions. I’ll discuss implications of these findings for early learning, and possible generational changes that may have lasting effects as our modern children become adults.