animacy intuitions

One of the things I study is how we perceive other minds, including in things that don't actually have them (more generally, how we attribute/project features of human minds to things that aren't human, or in other words anthropomorphizing). A related question is what we think of as alive; for example, the research of a friend and colleague has shown that kids (and sometimes even adults) make errors in deciding that things that move themselves (like clouds and fire) are alive (and conversely, are less likely to think of trees and bushes as alive than animals). So I was especially interested this afternoon, as we left a playdate, to hear Sam ask, "Mommy, are robots alive?" "What do you think?" I asked, perfectly casual, and he considered just a moment before saying "No. They sometimes move, though. But cars move, and cars aren't alive, right?" Heh.

It has been a day of much conflict, between Sam and various friends (we had friends with a younger kid over for brunch, and then in the afternoon had a playdate with a former preschool classmate); between a friend and the friend's brother while Sam was playing with (or, at least, near) both of them; between Sam and me; and even between Bean and me, in that she has taken to biting me hard with her gums while nursing, and I haven't figured out how to stop her (when I say, firmly, "no biting" she thinks it's a great game). I am very glad that both children are asleep, dishes are done, meals for the week are planned, and all I have left to do for today is go through a foot-high stack of non-critical but non-junk mail, and then pack my spanky new backpack for tomorrow's spanky new return to work. (Let the twice-daily pumping begin in earnest...)