Effects of visual information presented by augmented reality on children’s behavior

The effects on children’s behavior of visual information presented by augmented reality (AR) were investigated. A human-like AR character was presented standing in one of two physical pathways to children aged 5–7 years old and 8–10 years old before they completed a filler task. After the task, the children were required to walk through one of the two pathways to obtain a reward. Both the 5–7- and 8–10-year-olds chose the pathway that was not associated with the AR character more frequently than the pathway that was. Subsequently, adult participants tested in a similar manner showed no significant bias in pathway selection. Taken together, these results suggest that the presentation of an AR character within the present experimental setting affected the behavior of children aged from 5–10 years but not that of adults. The results are discussed in the context of developmental changes in sensitivity to insubstantial agents (e.g., imaginary companion), the reality of information displayed by AR technology, and differences in the methods of AR presentation (e.g., hand-held devices vs. head-mounted devices).