Bio:
Kimberly Brink is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in Developmental Psychology. Her work investigates how children reason about the minds of others and, in particular, the minds of robots. Her dissertation explores how children’s beliefs about the minds of robots impacts their feelings toward and willingness to trust them.

Abstract:
Children apply theory of mind to not only the minds of other people, but are also now increasingly applying it to newly developing technologies. Computers, smart phones, artificially intelligent assistants, and robots are all operating at the point where they now appear to have minds of their own. And every day they are increasingly interacting with children in homes, schools, hospitals, and shopping malls. Here, I will present the results of my dissertation investigating how a theory of mind for social robots can have important implications for children’s educational and social cognitive outcomes. This encompasses a series of studies examining children's feelings toward robots, their attributions of mind to them, and how those impact their willingness to trust and learn from robots.