Children’s Cognition and the Inference of Life Phenomenon about Anthropomorphic Characters

Abstract

Objective This study aimed to investigate the cognition of life phenomenon regarding anthropomorphic characters according to the characters’ properties amongst children aged 3, 4, and 5. Methods 95 children aged 3 to 5 years from two child-care centers located in Seoul and Gyeonggido participated in this study. Each child was interviewed individually and completed cognition and inference of life phenomenon tasks. Results First, preschoolers considered anthropomorphic animal characters as animals. Children aged 3, 4, and 5 were likely to refer to the animation characters as alive and considered animation characters to have many biological and psychological traits. Second, there were significant differences in children’s inferences of life phenomena according to the properties of the anthropomorphic characters. Preschoolers considered low anthropomorphic animation characters to have more biological traits and reality. For low actuality characters, preschoolers considered them to have more reality. Third, there were significant differences in children’s inferences of reality according to their age: 5-year-olds were more likely to infer the animation character as an imaginary entity, compared to 3- year-olds. Conclusion As the literature related to children’s cognition about anthropomorphic characters is limited, this study investigated what children think about animation characters and offers useful guidelines for the development of educational media or applications for young children. Keywords: cognition of life phenomenon, inference of life phenomenon, anthropomorphic animal character, animation character