Papers by Deanne Perez-Granados
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 1997
... and analysis. We also would like to thank Margarita Azmitia, Maria Black, Catherine Cooper, S... more ... and analysis. We also would like to thank Margarita Azmitia, Maria Black, Catherine Cooper, Stephanie Dalton, Joanna Goldberg, Rafael Granados, and Barry McLaughlin for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Finally, we ...
Developmental Psychology, 1997
... Many researchers have reported evi-dence that parents' speech to their children has feat... more ... Many researchers have reported evi-dence that parents' speech to their children has features that may help them learn language (Gleitman, Newport, & ... Deanne R. Pe"rez-Granados and Maureen A. Callanan, Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. ...
Developmental Psychology, 2005
Research indicates that young children, unlike adults, have a generalized tendency to view not on... more Research indicates that young children, unlike adults, have a generalized tendency to view not only artifacts but also living and nonliving natural phenomena as existing for a purpose. To further understand this tendency's origin, the authors explored parents' propensity to invoke teleological explanation during explanatory conversations with their children. Over 2 weeks, Mexican-descent mothers were interviewed about question-answer exchanges with their preschool children. Analyses revealed that children asked more about biological and social phenomena than about artifacts or nonliving natural phenomena, with most questions ambiguous as to whether they were requests for causal or teleological explanations. In responding to these ambiguous questions, parents generally invoked causal rather than teleological explanations. The tendency to favor causal explanation was confirmed by analyses of transcripts from a longitudinal study of spontaneous speech in a father-son dyad. These results suggest that children's bias toward teleological explanation does not straightforwardly derive from parent explanation. The tendency to explain objects and events in terms of their functions, designs, or purposes-to adopt a teleological mode of explanation-is a significant aspect of adults' explanatory repertoire. The bias to reason in teleological terms gives cohesion to notions of artifacts, such as chairs (objects viewed as "for" sitting on), body parts, such as feet (objects viewed as "for" walking), and activities, such as breathing or working (behaviors viewed as "for" sustaining life either biologically or materially). It helps to constrain our reasoning about unfamiliar objects and events, allowing us to figure out, for example, how an unfamiliar gadget or body part works, why it has the properties it does, and how it relates to other things. In short, teleological reasoning plays a substantial role in adults' theory building about everyday phenomena, prompting a profoundly human compulsion to ask questions, such as "Why?" and "What is it for?" (e.g., Dawkins, 1995; Kelemen, 1999a, 1999c, 1999d). Because teleological thought is such an important feature of adult cognition, research has recently begun to explore how it develops (
CHI'04 extended …, 2004
This study examined preschool children's reasoning about and behavioral interactions with one of ... more This study examined preschool children's reasoning about and behavioral interactions with one of the most advanced robotic pets currently on the retail market, Sony's robotic dog AIBO. Eighty children, equally divided between two age groups, 34-50 months and 58-74 months, participated in individual sessions that included play with and an interview about two artifacts: AIBO and a stuffed dog. Results showed similarities in children's reasoning about the two artifacts, but differences in their behavioral interactions. Discussion focuses on how robotic pets, as representative of an emerging technological genre in HCI, may be (a) blurring foundational ontological categories, and (b) impacting children's social and moral development. More broadly, results inform on our understanding of the human-robotic relationship.
Uploads
Papers by Deanne Perez-Granados