I didn't read the study, but my guess is they're not taking about literally pretending that things are people (like in the movie examples) - but that you develop empathy towards a device and interact with it/attach value to it in ways that were reserved for social interactions before.

If you replace the box of cereal with a smartphone, I think you can already spot that today. I also know at least two people who have given their cleaning robot a name and (semi-seriously) treat it as a pet. And let's not even start with realdolls...