Do you see what I see? Children’s understanding of perception and physical interaction over video chat

Abstract

How do children reason about people presented over video chat? Video chat is a representation, like a picture; but is also a real social interaction (the partner sees and hears you). Do children understand the nuanced affordances and limitations of video chat? We tested 4-year-old children’s reasoning, asking if a person over video chat (vs. a live person; photograph) could see, hear, feel, and physically interact through the screen. Children judged that a person over video chat can see, but cannot feel nor receive an object, through the screen. The person over video chat was judged to hear more often than a photograph, but less often than a live person. Preschool children are not limited to considering a stimulus fully representational, or fully present; instead, they understand video chat as a medium that blurs the boundaries of representation and reality, allowing for a mixture of life-like affordances and picture-like limitations.

Relationship-based practice and digital technology in child and family social work: Learning from practice during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…This involves knowing how to use the technology and set up the calls, as well as supporting children to stay engaged when they get bored, walk off screen, or struggle with the conversation (Ames et al, 2010; Iyer, Albakri et al, 2020). Around the age of four, children can understand the nature of video calls as both real but not present (Bennette et al, 2021).…”