An important property of Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) is their capability to acquire/perceive information from their environment. Bearing in mind some studies on situational awareness – where sensitive perception can be understood as the first level of awareness – and taking into account one of the most successful awareness models in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) – the Spatial Model of Interaction (SMI), we have developed a human-like perceptual model for IVAs. This perceptual model extends and reinterprets the key concepts of the SMI and also introduces some factors typical from human being perception with the aim of making perception, in this kind of systems, more human-like.