Adopting the intentional stance toward natural and artificial agents

Bibliographic Data

ID8069652
AuthorsJairo Pérez-Osorio (0000-0003-0954-5704, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Social Cognition in Human Robot Interaction, Genova, Italy, corresponding author), Agnieszka Wykowska (0000-0003-3323-7357, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Social Cognition in Human Robot Interaction, Genova, Italy)
Year2019
Volume33
Issue3
Pages369-395
Publication date2019-12-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09515089.2019.1688778
OpenAlexW2992873857
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited69

In our daily lives, we need to predict and understand others’ behavior in order to navigate through our social environment. Predictions concerning other humans’ behavior usually refer to their mental states, such as beliefs or intentions. Such a predictive strategy is called ‘adoption of the intentional stance.’ In this paper, we review literature related to the concept of intentional stance from the perspectives of philosophy, psychology, human development, culture, and human-robot interaction. We propose that adopting the intentional stance might be a pivotal factor in facilitating social attunement with artificial agents. The paper first reviews the theoretical considerations regarding the intentional stance and examines literature related to the development of the intentional stance across life span. Subsequently, we discuss cultural norms as grounded in the intentional stance, and finally, we focus on the issue of adopting the intentional stance toward artificial agents, such as humanoid robots. At the dawn of the artificial intelligence era, the question of how – and also when – we predict and explain robots’ behavior by referring to mental states is of high interest. The paper concludes with a discussion on ethical consequences of adopting the intentional stance toward robots, and sketches future directions in research on this topic

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Natural (archaeology · Child and Animal Learning Development · Computer Science · Language and cultural evolution · Psychology · Social Robot Interaction and HRI · Artificial Intelligence · History · Philosophy

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