“It doesn’t matter what you are!” Explaining social effects of agents and avatars

Pütten, Astrid M. von der; Krämer, Nicole C.; Gratch, Jonathan; Kang, Sin‐Hwa

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.06.012

Cited by 299 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

134

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Recent studies about the impact of anthropomorphic virtual humans indicate that increasing the number of social cues leads to even stronger social reactions on the part of the user [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a previous study challenging both approaches, von der Pütten et al [14] compared the importance of agency and behavioral realism of a virtual character and found the extent of displayed social behavior to be of greater importance than the participants' knowledge about the virtual agent being introduced as an avatar or an agent. Although it is astonishing that the rather subtle variation of social cues in this study (virtual character with and without head nodding) had more impact than the knowledge of whether one interacted with a fellow human or a machine, it cannot be concluded that it is first and foremost social cues instead of agency that result in social reactions on the part of the user, because a multitude of social cues were present in all conditions, since in all conditions a humanlike virtual agent was employed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Does Humanity Matter? Analyzing the Importance of Social Cues and Perceived Agency of a Computer System for the Emergence of Social Reactions during Human-Computer Interaction

Appel

Pütten

Krämer

et al. 2012

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Empirical studies have repeatedly shown that autonomous artificial entities elicit social behavior on the part of the human interlocutor. Various theoretical approaches have tried to explain this phenomenon. The agency assumption states that the social influence of human interaction partners (represented by avatars) will always be higher than the influence of artificial entities (represented by embodied conversational agents). Conversely, the Ethopoeia concept predicts that automatic social reactions are triggered by situations as soon as they include social cues. Both theories have been challenged in a 2 × 2 between subjects design with two levels of agency (low: agent, high: avatar) and two interfaces with different degrees of social cues (low: textchat, high: virtual human). The results show that participants in the virtual human condition reported a stronger sense of mutual awareness, imputed more positive characteristics, and allocated more attention to the virtual human than participants in the text chat conditions. Only one result supports the agency assumption; participants who believed to interact with a human reported a stronger feeling of social presence than participants who believed to interact with an artificial entity. It is discussed to what extent these results support the social cue assumption made in the Ethopoeia approach.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Humanity Matter? Analyzing the Importance of Social Cues and Perceived Agency of a Computer System for the Emergence of Social Reactions during Human-Computer Interaction

Appel

Pütten

Krämer

et al. 2012

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When agency is high behavioral realism is of less importance, but when agency is low, behavioral realism may be needed for participants to overcome the social influence threshold and interact with a robot in a social way. Some studies that manipulated agency did not uncover any effects: participants had the same evaluations for different levels of agency (Midden & Ham, 2012;Von der Pütten, Krämer, Gratch, & Kang, 2010). In the same study performed by Von der Pütten and colleagues (2010) behavioral realism was manipulated, and results were in line with : higher levels of behavioral realism (i.e., social cues) led to more social behavior.…”

Section: Threshold Model Of Social Influencementioning

confidence: 76%

“…Arguably, the most sophisticated models explaining the social responses of humans to social robots are the media equation hypothesis (Reeves & Nass, 1996) and the threshold model of social influence . These theories are argued to have the highest potential in contributing to our understanding of human-robot interaction (Von der Pütten, Krämer, Gratch, & Kang, 2010). We describe these theories in further detail below, suggesting a framework to further investigate interactions using idle motions and meaningful motions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motions of Robots Matter! The Social Effects of Idle and Meaningful Motions

Cuijpers

Knops

2015

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…This match between behavior and representation is determined by many different aspects (e.g., movement, interactive behavior, social behavior, verbal, and non-verbal communication [41,44]). Higher behavioral realism leads to increased perceived social cues and evokes more social responses in the user [30]. However, if there is a mismatch between behavioral realism and form realism, social presence declines [2,3].…”

Section: Behavioral Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing Robot Embodiments for Social Interaction: Affordances Topple Realism and Aesthetics

Paauwe¹,

Hoorn²,

Konijn³

et al. 2015

Int J of Soc Robotics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the near future, human-like social robots will become indispensable for providing support in various social tasks, in particular for healthcare (e.g., assistance, coaching). The perception of realism, in particular human-like features, can help facilitate mediated social interaction. The current study investigated the effects of form realism on engagement with and use intentions of social robot embodiments. We have defined (perceived) form realism as the result of the appraisal of features that are perceived as realistic contrasted with those appraised as unrealistic. To test the effects of form realism, we applied the model of interactively perceiving and experiencing fictional characters (I-PEFiC). I-PEFiC explains how users respond to interactive, fictional, humanoid characters, on social robots. In a within-subjects design, participants (N = 29; M age = 28.8 years, age range 18-56 years) interacted with three different robots built from LEGO Mindstorms, which differed in their degree of designed form realism. Each robot presented itself as a physiotherapy assistant and requested the participant to do several exercises. Results of a structured questionnaire indicated that form realism only played a modest role in the perception of electro-mechanical robots. Instead, the perception of affordances appeared to be crucial for determining engagement and intentions to use social robots.

show abstract

“It doesn’t matter what you are!” Explaining social effects of agents and avatars

Cited by 299 publications

References 25 publications

Does Humanity Matter? Analyzing the Importance of Social Cues and Perceived Agency of a Computer System for the Emergence of Social Reactions during Human-Computer Interaction

Does Humanity Matter? Analyzing the Importance of Social Cues and Perceived Agency of a Computer System for the Emergence of Social Reactions during Human-Computer Interaction

Motions of Robots Matter! The Social Effects of Idle and Meaningful Motions

Designing Robot Embodiments for Social Interaction: Affordances Topple Realism and Aesthetics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About