The Turing Test for Toddlers and Cockroaches

Two new studies that show how robots may be accepted in a community of cockroaches toddlers. In the first case, the robots were able to influence collective decision-making; in the second, the integration of the robot was related with the unpredictability of its behavior.

Halloy, J., Sempo, G., Caprari, G., Rivault, C., Asadpour, M., Tache, F., et al. (2007). Social Integration of Robots into Groups of Cockroaches to Control Self-Organized Choices. Science, 318(5853), 1155-1158. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5853/1155

Tanaka, F., Cicourel, A., & Movellan, J. R. (2007). Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(46), 17954-17958.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/46/17954