Children's concepts of the social affordances of a virtual dog and a stuffed dog

• Preschool children tend to view a virtual dog as providing entertainment.
• Preschool children tend to view a stuffed dog as providing companionship.
• Preschool children tend to view both a stuffed and a virtual dog as having agency.

Virtual characters are programmed to simulate relationship partners, yet little is known about how children conceptualize the social affordances of these characters, despite their growing presence in children's lives. In two studies (combined N = 49), we investigated the extent to which preschool children differentiate the social affordances of a virtual character that simulates social behaviors and those of a stuffed animal of the sort that children often use in pretend play. Children guessed whether a child in a video was referring to a stuffed dog or a virtual dog in a series of statements. The stuffed dog was associated with items rated by adults as relevant to friendship, whereas the virtual dog was associated with items rated as relevant to entertainment. These results suggest that despite their sophisticated programming, virtual characters might not be superior to simple stuffed animals as relationship partners.