Personalized interactive characters for toddlers' learning of seriation from a video presentation

•Personalized interactive media characters can increase toddlers' learning of seriation skills.•Toddlers with stronger relationships with media characters learn the most content from video demonstrations by the characters.•Parasocial relationships can develop when toddlers play with interactive media characters.•Parents can aid toddlers in building relationships with interactive characters during play.

Children's media is rooted in relationships with onscreen characters. In this study, 18-month-old toddlers were initially exposed to one of two unfamiliar interactive media characters for 3 months. Conditions varied whether the character was personalized to them or not. At age 21 months, toddlers were tested on a seriation task that was presented onscreen by the character and compared to the performance of a 21-month-old control group who did not view a video demonstration (total N = 48). Toddlers learned significantly more from the personalized character, but not from the non-personalized character, when compared to the control group. Children in the personalized condition also increased in parasocial, nurturing behaviors directed at the character during play sessions, and these scores were linked to better seriation performance. The results suggest an important role for social relationships with interactive characters to teach early seriation skills.