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In this study, we discuss the psychological acceptability of an utterance strategy used by the Driving Support Agent (DSA). Previous literature regarding DSA suggests that the adoption of a small robot as a form will increase acceptability. However, the agent’s utterance has been reported as a problem faced by the user. Therefore, in this study, we designed the agent’s utterance using politeness strategy as described by Brown and Levinson’s famous sociolinguistics and pragmatics theory and analyzed its acceptability through a participant-based experiment. In this experiment, we used positive and negative politeness strategies (PPS and NPS, respectively). In general, PPS is utilized to reflect the desire to be liked/recognized by others, whereas NPS is utilized to reflect the need for not wanting to be disturbed by others. Based on our results, PPS was rated high compared to NPS (n = 197). Therefore, many participants highly evaluated PPS. However, there was a group of participants who appreciated NPS. There were also participants who evaluated the two strategies equally. The number of participants in these three groups was observed at 4:1:1. This result contributes as an index on the utterance design of the DSA.

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In this paper, we propose an agent which selects utterance strategy according to driver's attributes and situation based on politeness theory. The proposed agent system considers attribute information such as age, gender, personality, driving experience and driving characteristics of the driver, and selects and supports highly receptive utterance strategies. Here, as a survey for the development of the proposed system, an impression evaluation experiment on a driving support agent was conducted using a moving picture reflecting driving support scenes. In particular, we focused attention on the difference of the end-of-sentence style which is a representation method of distinctive psychological distances in Japanese conversation. As a result of the experiment, it is suggested that agents using non-polite words may be effective for improving familiarity. On the other hand, the agent using honorifics gives the impression that it is cautious, suggesting the possibility that it feels that information is conveyed accurately.

The aim of this investigation is to examine the relationship between information-eliciting questions and their corresponding answers that occur in first encounters between male interlocutors in a Japanese semi-formal academic context. This topic acquires a special significance in the context of Japanese culture, where asking questions is regarded as dispreferred verbal behavior. Five types of constraints on initiating question-based conversations in a Japanese social-cultural context have been identified: (i) questions may compel the recipient to speak; (ii) questions may invade the recipient’s personal territory; (iii) questions may reveal conflict between interlocutors; (iv) questions may interrupt someone’s ongoing talk; and (v) questions may reveal the respondent’s inability to answer. The analysis points to a paradox regarding the discursive behaviour of Japanese males: they show a desire to get acquainted with each other, while at the same time they are reluctant to ask questions which might cause uncomfortable feelings.