Manipulation of Non-verbal Interaction Style and Demographic Embodiment to Increase Anthropomorphic Computer Character Credibility
For years, people have sought more natural means of communicating with their computers. Many have suggested that interaction with a computer should be as easy as interacting with other people, taking advantage of the multimodal nature of human communication. While users should, in theory, gravitate to such anthropomorphic embodiments, quite the contrary has been experienced; users generally have been dissatisfied and abandoned their use. This suggests a disconnect between the factors that make human-human communication engaging and those used by designers to support human-agent interaction. This paper discusses a set of empirical studies that attempted to replicate human-human nonverbal behavior. The focus revolved around the behaviors that portrayed a credible façade, helping the embodied conversational agent (ECA) to form a successful cooperative dyad with the user. Based on a review of the nonverbal literature, a framework was created that identified trustworthy and credible nonverbal behaviors across five areas and formed design guidelines for character interaction. The design suggestions for those areas emanating from the facial region (facial expression, eye contact and paralanguage) were experimentally supported but there was no concordant increase in perceived trust when bodily regions (posture and gesture) were added. In addition, in examining the importance of demographic elements in the embodiment, it was found that users prefer to interact with characters that match their ethnicity and are young looking. There was no significant preference for gender. The implications of these results, as well as other interesting consequences are discussed.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 914692
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-41187; TRN: US200812%%25
- Journal Information:
- International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 62(2):281-306, Vol. 62, Issue 2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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