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While children have shown a surge of interest and engagement in interactive toys, it is still not clear whether interactive toys using digital technology can play a productive and positive role in promoting the experiential outcomes of pretend play, such as creativity and social interaction. Thus, this Ph.D. research focuses on exploring how children adopt and utilize interactive toys in symbolic and social ways and what interactional design features contribute to their playful experience, within a pretend play context. To this end, instances ranging from experience prototypes and a tabletop toy system to a wearable device with the use of digital augmentation were proposed and investigated - in particular, visual and auditory ways - as interventions for pretend play. The results to date imply that children utilize digital augmentation as an impetus to assign varying symbolic meanings to toys and as a trigger to interact and become socially aware.
Jiwoo Hong (Thu,) studied this question.