Fostering Cross-Cultural Research by Cross-Cultural Student Teams: A Case Study Related to Kawaii (Cute) Robot Design

Berque, Dave; Chiba, Hiroko; Ohkura, Michiko; Sripian, Peeraya; Sugaya, Midori

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-49788-0_42

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The present study constructs a division of two components high context individuals and low-context individuals' context. However, as a result, high-context cultures understand the information from clues easily not just from one Couse communication (Hermeking, 2005;Berque et al, 2020;Park & McKilligan, 2018). This proves how cultural communication depends on the feeling of a comfortable environment and how they react to the present scenarios to deliver it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Advergames on Cultural Outcomes in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia

hanbazazah¹,

Reeve²,

Abuljadail³

2023

IBR

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Advergames represent a new advertising concept that uses internet technology to implement viral marketing campaigns. This study aimed to conduct a comparative analysis of and impact of advergames on cultural outcomes. This cross-cultural study investigated the impact of advergame on the cultural differences and similarities between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. Participants from both Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom were invited to complete a questionnaire. The sample consisted of male and female participants from all age groups. According to the findings, most of the Saudi Arabian respondents responded neutrally to considering cultural values within advergames. By contrast, the majority of the United Kingdom participants agreed that they were indifferent to the culture projected by the advergame characters. The findings also confirm the implementation of better strategies for games that consider the different cultural aspects of different countries. Notably, these findings suggest that visual familiarity can influence consumer behavior across cultures. We expect our findings to be used in future research that examines cultural outcomes in advergames.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Advergames on Cultural Outcomes in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia

hanbazazah¹,

Reeve²,

Abuljadail³

2023

IBR

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“…Indeed, researchers working in human-computer interaction (HCI), humanrobot interaction (HRI), and human-agent interaction (HAI) have started exploring the "kawaii-ness" of interactive agents that feature a range of modalities and communicative capacities. So far, robots, virtual characters, and artificial agents have taken centre stage, with most focusing on visual appearance [4][5][6]9,30] but emerging work on movement and nonverbal behaviours [48], nonverbal sounds and melodies [9,51], touch [35], conduct [24,27], and voice [24]. This shift towards exploring nonvisual modes of expressing kawaii in interactive agents echoes an increase in HCI work on voice-based agents without a visible or perceivable body [43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Voice Assistants Sound Cute? Towards a Model of Kawaii Vocalics

Seaborn

Nam

Keckeis

et al. 2023

Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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The Japanese notion of "kawaii" or expressions of cuteness, vulnerability, and/or charm is a global cultural export. Work has explored kawaii-ness as a design feature and factor of user experience in the visual appearance, nonverbal behaviour, and sound of robots and virtual characters. In this initial work, we consider whether voices can be kawaii by exploring the vocal qualities of voice assistant speech, i.e., kawaii vocalics. Drawing from an age-inclusive model of kawaii, we ran a user perceptions study on the kawaii-ness of younger-and older-sounding Japanese computer voices. We found that kawaii-ness intersected with perceptions of gender and age, i.e., gender ambiguous and girlish, as well as VA features, i.e., fluency and artificiality. We propose an initial model of kawaii vocalics to be validated through the identification and study of vocal qualities, cognitive appraisals, behavioural responses, and affective reports.

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“…In our previous introduction of this project [1], we explained the IRES program and the track of our proposal as follows:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on this accepted proposal, we had designed a 7-week collaborative project for cross-cultural teams to design, build and evaluate robotic gadgets, which would begin in June 2020 at SIT's Toyosu Campus [1]. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became impossible for students from DePauw University to travel to Japan and work together with SIT students at the SIT campus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Implementation of Kawaii Robotic Gadgets in Virtual Spaces by Japanese and American University Students in a Remote Collaboration Project

Ohkura

Sugaya

Sripian

et al. 2022

IJAE

Self Cite

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This paper describes our educational project using remote collaboration related to the design and implementation of virtual Kawaii robots and spaces by Japanese and American university students. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to change our planned 7-week collaboration from in-person to virtual with a resultant change in the target product of our collaboration from real robots to virtual robots. Based on our new plan, students designed virtual spaces with robot pairs, proposed evaluation items for the robot pairs, evaluated their designs, and analyzed the results. The students designed each robot pair with the goal that one robot would be more kawaii and the other would be less kawaii due to a variation in a single attribute such as shape or color. The evaluation instrument used adjective pairs that were suitable to evaluate the affective values of the robot pairs and the virtual spaces the robots occupied. Through the design experience, students learned a lot about Kawaii Engineering and affective evaluation, which gave them a deeper understanding of Japanese culture from the viewpoint of Kansei/Affective Engineering. It is shown that understanding the role of "kawaii" for robotic gadget design is possible for students with various cultural background even under the virtual environment by employing our educational approach. This is a useful example of remote collaboration for education on Kansei Engineering. This paper is extended from the manuscript in the proceedings of ISASE 2021.

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Fostering Cross-Cultural Research by Cross-Cultural Student Teams: A Case Study Related to Kawaii (Cute) Robot Design

Cited by 12 publications

References 11 publications

Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Advergames on Cultural Outcomes in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia

Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Advergames on Cultural Outcomes in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia

Can Voice Assistants Sound Cute? Towards a Model of Kawaii Vocalics

Design and Implementation of Kawaii Robotic Gadgets in Virtual Spaces by Japanese and American University Students in a Remote Collaboration Project

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