in press a). Robotic pets in human lives: Implications for the human-animal bond and for human relationships with personified technologies

Robotic “pets ” are being marketed as social companions and are used in the emerging field of robot-assisted activities, including robot-assisted therapy (RAA). However, the limits to and potential of robotic analogues of living animals as social and therapeutic partners remain unclear. Do children and adults view robotic pets as “animal-like, ” “machine-like, ” or some combination of both? How do social behaviors differ toward a robotic versus living dog? To address these issues, we synthesized data from three studies of the robotic dog AIBO: (1) a content analysis of 6,438 Internet postings by 182 adult AIBO owners; (2) observations ∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gail F. Melson, Depart