From an evolutionary perspective, it is far safer to automatically attribute agency to inanimate objects that behave like living things than it is to mistake a living thing for a seemingly inanimate object.
That swaying in the trees may just be a breeze or it could be a wild beast, coiled and ready to strike. You can misperceive the breeze as a beast or the beast as a breeze. Which mistake would you rather make? And if you were an early hominid, which mistake would be more likely to ensure that you would survive long enough to reproduce?
And pattern recognition evolved in large part to predict the purpose of living things.
Some related jargons:
- physiognomic perception
- physiognomic projection