Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction
Interaction with artificial social agents is often designed based on models of human interaction and dialogue. While this is certainly useful for basic interaction mechanisms, it has been argued that social communication strategies and social language use, a “particularly human” ability, may not be...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2023.1242127/full |
| _version_ | 1797435520590020608 |
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| author | Eleonore Lumer Hendrik Buschmeier |
| author_facet | Eleonore Lumer Hendrik Buschmeier |
| author_sort | Eleonore Lumer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Interaction with artificial social agents is often designed based on models of human interaction and dialogue. While this is certainly useful for basic interaction mechanisms, it has been argued that social communication strategies and social language use, a “particularly human” ability, may not be appropriate and transferable to interaction with artificial conversational agents. In this paper, we present qualitative research exploring whether users expect artificial agents to use politeness—a fundamental mechanism of social communication—in language-based human-robot interaction. Based on semi-structured interviews, we found that humans mostly ascribe a functional, rule-based use of polite language to humanoid robots and do not expect them to apply socially motivated politeness strategies that they expect in human interaction. This study 1) provides insights for interaction design for social robots’ politeness use from a user perspective, and 2) contributes to politeness research based on the analysis of our participants’ perspectives on politeness. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T10:49:09Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-697914b12d384d1b919d4eab2e1fc883 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-9144 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T10:49:09Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
| spelling | doaj.art-697914b12d384d1b919d4eab2e1fc8832023-12-01T09:20:50ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Robotics and AI2296-91442023-11-011010.3389/frobt.2023.12421271242127Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interactionEleonore LumerHendrik BuschmeierInteraction with artificial social agents is often designed based on models of human interaction and dialogue. While this is certainly useful for basic interaction mechanisms, it has been argued that social communication strategies and social language use, a “particularly human” ability, may not be appropriate and transferable to interaction with artificial conversational agents. In this paper, we present qualitative research exploring whether users expect artificial agents to use politeness—a fundamental mechanism of social communication—in language-based human-robot interaction. Based on semi-structured interviews, we found that humans mostly ascribe a functional, rule-based use of polite language to humanoid robots and do not expect them to apply socially motivated politeness strategies that they expect in human interaction. This study 1) provides insights for interaction design for social robots’ politeness use from a user perspective, and 2) contributes to politeness research based on the analysis of our participants’ perspectives on politeness.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2023.1242127/fullhuman–robot interactionsocial communication strategiespolitenessuser expectationsdesign implications |
| spellingShingle | Eleonore Lumer Hendrik Buschmeier Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction Frontiers in Robotics and AI human–robot interaction social communication strategies politeness user expectations design implications |
| title | Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction |
| title_full | Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction |
| title_fullStr | Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction |
| title_full_unstemmed | Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction |
| title_short | Should robots be polite? Expectations about politeness in human–robot interaction |
| title_sort | should robots be polite expectations about politeness in human robot interaction |
| topic | human–robot interaction social communication strategies politeness user expectations design implications |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2023.1242127/full |
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