Conrad Perry

Swinburne University of Technology, University of Adelaide

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About

Conrad Perry’s research sits at the compelling intersection of developmental psychology and human-robot interaction, exploring how young children perceive and behave toward social robots. His most influential work, “Investigating the nature of children’s altruism using a social humanoid robot” (2019, 47 citations), provides foundational insight into whether children’s helping behavior extends beyond humans to artificial agents. Perry’s follow-up study, “Young Children’s Indiscriminate Helping Behavior Toward a Humanoid Robot” (2020, 25 citations), further demonstrates that young children help robots relatively indiscriminately, much as they help other humans, suggesting that early prosocial tendencies are not strictly reserved for living beings. These findings have significant implications for designing educational and assistive robots for early childhood settings. By systematically examining how robot characteristics influence children’s altruism, Perry has helped bridge developmental theory with robotics, offering a nuanced understanding of how children anthropomorphize and engage with social agents. His work is essential reading for researchers in child development, social robotics, and human-robot interaction, and continues to shape debates on the nature of early prosocial behavior and its boundaries.