Papers
9
Total Citations
167
H-Index
7
About
Kristyn Sommer is a developmental psychologist whose research sits at the fascinating intersection of child cognition and human-robot interaction. Her work explores how young children perceive, trust, and learn from social robots compared to human agents—a question of growing importance as robots enter homes and classrooms. Her most cited paper (62 citations) examines children’s perceptions of the moral worth of live agents, robots, and inanimate objects, revealing how early moral reasoning extends to non-human entities. She has also shown that preschoolers overimitate robots, though less than they overimitate humans, and that children selectively trust robots over humans in certain reliability contexts (22 citations). Her studies on infants’ imitation of on-screen humans and robots (15 citations) and the “video deficit” in technology-saturated environments (11 citations) challenge assumptions about screen-based learning. Sommer’s work has direct implications for robot design and educational technology, demonstrating both children’s openness to learning from robots and their nuanced judgments about robot social standing. Her findings on children’s anti-social behaviour toward robots (5 citations) raise important ethical questions for classroom robotics.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 4Can a robot teach me that? Children’s ability to imitate robots15 citations · 2020
- 5The early ontogeny of infants’ imitation of on screen humans and robots15 citations · 2021
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- 9Designing for Robust Movement in a Child-Friendly Robot3 citations · 2018