A day at a beach with a starfish man: Anthropomorphization of a cartoon starfish

Anthropomorphization is the process by which humans ascribe human form or attributes to non-human animals or objects. A recent study revealed that people anthropomorphized a cartoon starfish more strongly when the starfish had a face, than when the starfish did not have a face. Two experiments were conducted to determine if anthropomorphization of a cartoon, non-human animal (a starfish) occurs when: 1) visual elements associated with humans, such as clothing, were presented on the body, and 2) people read a story about the non-human cartoon character performing human activities. Participants completed body-part compatibility tasks in which they responded (thumb-press or foot-pedal) to a red or blue target (relevant feature) superimposed over the upper or lower limb (irrelevant feature) of a cartoon starfish, respectively. Experiment 1 consisted of two main presentation conditions: a starfish with a shirt and pants, and a starfish without clothing. Experiment 2 presented a starfish figure (without clothing) before and after participants read a story in which the starfish character went to the beach. Analysis of the RTs revealed body-part compatibility effects. Interestingly, the clothing and the story did not significantly modulate (increase) the magnitude of the compatibility effects. A possible explanation for such results could be that the pattern observed in both of the present experiments may be due to spatial compatibility rather than body-part compatibility effects. Alternatively, because the starfish did not have a face, the data from the series of experiments suggests that facial feature might be the key factor in facilitating anthropomorphization.Acknowledgments: This work was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.