Three- and 4-year-old children’s response tendencies to various interviewers

•3- to 4-year-olds were asked yes-no questions in three different conditions.•3-year-olds exhibited a yes bias to online human, human and robot via video.•4-year-olds only exhibited a yes bias to online human.•4-year-olds exhibited a nay-saying bias to both human and robot via video.

Unlike young preschoolers, older preschoolers may exhibit a response bias under social pressure from authoritative interviewers. To examine this, 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers were asked yes–no questions about familiar and unfamiliar objects in three conditions. In one condition an adult asked them questions in a live interaction, in a second condition an adult asked questions via video, and in a third condition a robot asked questions via video. The 3-year-olds exhibited a yes bias—a tendency to say “yes”—in nearly all conditions. The only exception was when they were asked questions about unfamiliar objects by the human interviewer via video, where they did not respond in a biased manner. The 4-year-olds exhibited a yes bias in only one condition—when they were questioned by a live human interviewer about both objects. They also exhibited a nay-saying bias when asked questions about unfamiliar objects in both video conditions, and they did not show any response bias in other conditions. The results suggest that the social pressure from an authoritative adult in a live interaction is problematic.