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How are interaction between human and an autonomous agent affected by embodiments and voice?: Investigation with age groups comparison.

2015; Wiley; Linguagem: Inglês

1551-6709

Etsuko T. Harada, Riko Hasegawa, Wataru Kayano, Hirotaka Osawa,

Social Robot Interaction and HRI

Although many information system are employing autonomous agents for the purpose of user-friendly interface, cognitive mechanisms of their effects are not clear yet. In this study, we compared three types of UI, an embodied agent system equipped with a direct anthropomorphization robot, an only voice agent, and without agent system condition, of a microwave oven. Thirty-six older (65 years or above) and 36 younger adults (undergraduate students) participated in the usability testing experiment with one of the three agent conditions. Analysis of interaction between a participant and the oven, through participants’ utterance and the personal-space data, showed large differences between two age groups; younger adults entertained the interaction both the voice and the embodiment agent conditions, while older adults evaluated higher only with the embodiment agent condition. Differences in mental models of olderand younger adults, and reasons of those aging effects will be discussed.