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This paper develops a critical perspective on the use of conversational agents (CAs) with children at home. Drawing on interviews with eleven parents of pre-school children living in Norway, we illustrate the ways in which parents resisted the values epitomised by CAs. We problematise CAs' attributes in light of parents' ontological perceptions of what it means to be human and outline how their attitudes correspond to Bourdieu's [1998a. Acts of Resistance. New York: New Press] concept of acts of resistance. For example, parents saw artificial conversation designed for profit as a potential threat to users' autonomy and the instant gratification of CAs as a threat to children's development. Parents' antecedent beliefs map onto the ontological tensions between human and non-human attributes and challenge the neoliberal discourse by demanding freedom and equality for users rather than productivity and economic gain. Parents' comments reflect the belief that artificial conversation with a machine inappropriately and ineffectively mimics a nuanced and intimate human-to-human experience in service of profit motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many successful digital interfaces employ visual metaphors to convey features or data properties to users, but the characteristics that make a visual metaphor effective are not well understood. We used a theoretical conception of metaphor from cognitive linguistics to design an interactive system for viewing the citation network of the corpora of literature in the JSTOR database, a highly connected compound graph of 2 million papers linked by 8 million citations. We created 4 variants of this system, manipulating 2 distinct properties of metaphor. We conducted a between-subjects experimental study with 80 participants to compare understanding and engagement when working with each version. We found that building on known image schemas improved response time on look-up tasks, while contextual detail predicted increases in persistence and the number of inferences drawn from the data. Schema-congruency combined with contextual detail produced the highest gains in comprehension. These findings provide concrete mechanisms by which designers presenting large data sets through metaphorical interfaces may improve their effectiveness and appeal with users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linking a symbol to the object it represents is a skill that develops gradually over the first few years of life. However, prior work shows that frequent use of this capacity makes it unintuitive for adults to recognize it as a challenge for young children. We hypothesized that this disconnect would manifest in software interfaces designed for young children, such that applications would embed symbols that the target audience would fail to understand. We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 34 preschoolers between the ages of 2 and 5 to assess their ability to work with user interface elements that require symbolic mappings. In particular, we assessed, (1) symbolic progress bars and (2) demonstrations of touch interactions by an on-screen cartoon hand. We found that these techniques are entirely inaccessible for children under 3 and that they require specific design choices to facilitate understanding in children between the ages of 3 and 5. Among a sample of 94 popular apps targeting children in this age range, we found that these symbolic techniques are incorporated into 44% of apps for preschoolers. We further found that embellishing symbolic elements with visual detail, a common practice in apps for preschoolers, increases children׳s cognitive burden and is an additional barrier to performing the symbolic mappings necessary to use these interfaces. We present design alternatives that make these prevalent user interface elements accessible to this user group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite reports of mathematical talent in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), little is known about basic number processing abilities in affected children. We investigated number sense, the ability to rapidly assess quantity information, in 36 children with ASD and 61 typically developing controls. Numerical acuity was assessed using symbolic (Arabic numerals) as well as non-symbolic (dot array) formats. We found significant impairments in non-symbolic acuity in children with ASD, but symbolic acuity was intact. Symbolic acuity mediated the relationship between non-symbolic acuity and mathematical abilities only in children with ASD, indicating a distinctive role for symbolic number sense in the acquisition of mathematical proficiency in this group. Our findings suggest that symbolic systems may help children with ASD organize imprecise information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]