Do young children learn better from an informative or affiliative virtual agent?
Young children are active communicators well before they become proficient speakers. Even in preverbal stages, they engage in complex turn-taking behaviors, and their development is shaped by the responsiveness of their social environment. Yet not all responses are equal: caregivers often switch between affiliative responses (e.g., emotional mirroring, encouragement) and informative responses (e.g., labeling, correction).