Children grow up in an environment which is increasingly characterized by digital voice assistants (DVAs), such as Alexa, Siri or the Google Assistant. Our presentation highlighted why DVAs are important for developmental and educational research in their own right, and why voice-enabled technology, such as DVAs, might have a different impact on children’s cognitive development compared to other digital technologies. To support our argument empirically, we presented selected findings from a small-scale qualitative study in which we explored children’s ontological perceptions of DVAs in open interactions. These findings suggest that children can hold firm ontological beliefs about the distinct nature of humans and machines, whilst interpreting certain aspects of DVAs’ interactive capabilities as being genuinely humanoid (e.g., non-responsiveness, delayed responses, inaccuracy) and non-humanoid (e.g., permanent responsiveness, promptness, accuracy, limited conversational capacities, lack of common sense, standardized responses) at the same time.

Alexa, what are you? Exploring Young Children’s Ontological Perceptions of Digital Voice Assistants