The Tamagotchi effect is a term that refers to the development of emotional attachment with machines or robots or even software agent

Software agent

In computer science, a software agent is a piece of software that acts for a user or other program in a relationship of agency, which derives from the Latin agere : an agreement to act on one's behalf...

s. It has been noticed that humans tend to attach emotionally to things which otherwise do not have any emotions. For example, there are instances when people feel emotional about using their car keys, or with virtual pets.

It is more visible in fields which show parts of human behavior e.g. area of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

and automated knowledge processing.