Do psychological or vitalist agency differentially impact children’s and adults’ memory for scientific facts?

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

Prior research has explored the impact of animacy and agency on children’s and adults’ memory recall. Findings suggest that adults tend to recall more novel words related to animate than inanimate properties (Bonin, Gelin, & Bugaiska, 2014). Adults and children also have better recall of action sequences when they involve animate than inanimate entities (Loucks, Verrett, & Reise, 2020). Finally, ascribing anthropomorphic features and intentions to non-human agents (e.g., robots) enhances adults’ narrative memory about them (Baker, Hymel, & Levin, 2018).
Although this research suggests agency attributions consistently improve memory, it remains unknown what kinds of agency representations have this effect. Specifically, in this study, we explore whether anthropomorphic ascriptions of mentalistic agency to an entity aid children and adults’ memory for its actions more than ascriptions of more basic biological-vitalist agency. Ninety 6- and 7-year-old children and 133 adults (Mean age=21.4, SD=6.4) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which they watched a video about the history of the Earth: In the Animal condition, the Earth was described in vitalist agentic terms as a living being with biological goals and physiological needs (e.g. “Earth will keep growing and surviving”). In the Person condition, the Earth had mentalistic agency with feelings and desires (e.g. “Earth will keep working hard and trying to be happy”). In the Control condition, the Earth was described as a non-agentive physical-mechanical object. The video visuals were the same in all conditions and the narrative lengths were similar (Animal=575 words, Person=570 words, Control=555 words). Children were interviewed in person while adults did a computer-based version of the interview.
After watching the video, participants performed a free recall of the video narrative. Participants then completed closed-ended questions which tested their story comprehension. Two naïve coders checked for recall of 15 video facts and categorized the kind of agency spontaneously attributed to the Earth (i.e. vitalist, psychological or non-agentic) in association with those facts.
Analyses indicated that while adults recalled more than children (M=6.02, SD=3.2 versus M=3.22, SD=2.2, respectively), across age groups, there were no effects of condition on story comprehension or the number of video facts recalled (ps>.05). Nevertheless, children’s and adults’ spontaneous use of agentic terms about the Earth was associated with the condition to which they were assigned (ps<.001) and those agency ascriptions did confer some memory advantage. Specifically, individuals who spontaneously attributed either psychological or vitalist agency to the Earth in their free recall remembered more facts than those who did not attribute any agency (ps<.05) (see Figure 1).
These findings demonstrate that among children and adults, scientifically inaccurate ascriptions of agency to natural phenomena are associated with learning benefits: Individuals who spontaneously used agentic terms when recalling scientific facts about the earth had enhanced semantic memory. Furthermore, this enhancement occurred whether their agentic references were biological or psychological in nature. This suggests that children and adults’ are equally sensitive to animism and anthropomorphism, pointing to various strategies for increasing learning about the natural world.

Authors

• Lizette Pizza, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Manuela Benitez, University of Surrey
  Non-Presenting Author

• Taylor Lee, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Nicholas, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deb Kelemen, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author