In the shades of the uncanny valley: An experimental study of human-chatbot interaction

By L. Ciechanowski, Aleksandra Katarzyna Przegalinska, Mikołaj Magnuski, Peter A. Gloor. Future generations computer systems, 2018

543 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract This project has been carried out in the context of recent major developments in botics and more widespread usage of virtual agents in personal and professional sphere. The general purpose of the experiment was to thoroughly examine the character of the human–non-human interaction process. Thus, in the paper, we present a study of human–chatbot interaction, focusing on the affective responses of users to different types of interfaces with which they interact. The experiment consisted of two parts: measurement of psychophysiological reactions of chatbot users and a detailed questionnaire that focused on assessing interactions and willingness to collaborate with a bot. In the first quantitative stage, participants interacted with a chatbot, either with a simple text chatbot (control group) or an avatar reading its responses in addition to only presenting them on the screen (experimental group. We gathered the following psychophysiological data from participants: electromyography (EMG), respirometer (RSP), electrocardiography (ECG), and electrodermal activity (EDA). In the last, declarative stage, participants filled out a series of questionnaires related to the experience of interacting with (chat)bots and to the overall human–(chat)bot collaboration assessment. The theory of planned behaviour survey investigated attitude towards cooperation with chatbots in the future. The social presence survey checked how much the chatbot was considered to be a “real” person. The anthropomorphism scale measured the extent to which the chatbot seems humanlike. Our particular focus was on the so-called uncanny valley effect, consisting of the feeling of eeriness and discomfort towards a given medium or technology that frequently appears in various kinds of human–machine interactions. Our results show that participants were experiencing lesser uncanny effects and less negative affect in cooperation with a simpler text chatbot than with the more complex, animated avatar chatbot. The simple chatbot have also induced less intense psychophysiological reactions. Despite major developments in botics, the user’s affective responses towards bots have frequently been neglected. In our view, understanding the user’s side may be crucial for designing better chatbots in the future and, thus, can contribute to advancing the field of human–computer interaction.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/392ae4ad75142a8c14a85199e47263ae644cadef

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Citations in the corpus

Empathy Is All You Need: How a Conversational Agent Should Respond to Verbal Abuse (2020, result): “…the user evaluation of the counterattacking agent for anthropomorphism was the highest compared to the other CAs, the negative assessments of the counterattacking CA may be tied to Mori’s uncanny valley hypothesis that people generally feel negative feelings for very human-like objects [19, 47].”
How perceptions of intelligence and anthropomorphism affect adoption of personal intelligent agents (2020, background): “Prior research explored the psychophysiological reactions to chatbots with text or avatars (Ciechanowski et al., 2019) and the perceived humanness with response delay (Gnewuch et al., 2018).”
Rediscovering the use of chatbots in education: A systematic literature review (2020, background): “Ciechanowski et al. [11] reported a classic problem of conversational agents, the uncanny valley, with interesting conclusions.”
Can Conversing with a Computer Increase Turnout? Mobilization Using Chatbot Communication (2020, background): “Psychophysiological and survey measures indicate people have positive reactions to interaction with chatbots, with more positive response to simple text-based chatbots than more technologically complex chatbots (Ciechanowski et al. 2019).”
How Should My Chatbot Interact? A Survey on Social Characteristics in Human–Chatbot Interaction Design (2019, background): “In contrast, designing overly humanized agents results in uncanny feelings and increased expectations (Ciechanowski et al., 2018; Gnewuch et al., 2017), which also negatively impacts the interaction.”