The Impact of Age on Children's Selective Trust in Misleading Social Robots

As technology advances, young children are interacting with social robots more frequently and seeing them as a source of information. However, social robots do not always provide correct information; do 3- and 4-year-old toddlers trust social robots unconditionally? The aim of this study was to investigate whether selective trust scores of 3- and 4-year-old toddlers differ when confronted with a social robot that provides incorrect information, and to analyze whether theory of mind and inhibitory control may have an impact on this. The results found that there was a significant difference between age and young children's selective trust scores, and that theory of mind and inhibitory control were positively correlated with selective trust scores.