How do young children deal with hybrids of living and non‐living things: The case of humanoid robots

In this experiment, we tested children's intuitions about entities that bridge the contrast between living and non‐living things. Three‐ and four‐year‐olds were asked to attribute a range of properties associated with living things and machines to novel category‐defying complex artifacts (humanoid robots), a familiar living thing (a girl), and a familiar complex artifact (a camera). Results demonstrated that 4‐year‐olds tended to treat the category‐defying entities like members of the inanimate group, while 3‐year‐olds showed more variability in their responding. This finding suggests that preschoolers' ability to classify complex artifacts that cross the living–non‐living divide becomes more stable between the ages of 3 and 4 and that children at both ages draw on a range of properties when classifying such entities.