Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Talking-Ally: The Influence of Robot Utterance Generation Mechanism on Hearer Behaviors

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel utterance generation mechanism for a Talking-Ally robot through the utilization of the concepts of hearership and addressivity. The approach incorporates an addressee’s eye-gaze behaviors (state of hearership) in order to produce the utterances (addressivity) necessary for achieving smooth communication (synchronized with bodily interactions), which are perceived as being persuasive by the addressee. The results of the study show that the resources of the hearer were significant in generating or adjusting to the structure of utterances in order to persuade the addressee. Additionally, an analysis of dynamic interactions revealed that both the human and robot influenced each other’s behaviors—e.g., the robot influenced the addressee’s attention and the human influenced the robot in changing its utterances. The results of a subjective rating indicated that the robot recognized the participants as hearers, and it was also capable of utterance generation and behaved autonomously (robotic life-likeness), which proved to be crucial in enhancing the persuasiveness of the robot’s communication.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ford CE, Thompson SA (1996) Interactional units in conversation: syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. Stud Interact Socioling 13:134–184

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ford M, Cook M (1976) Gaze and mutual gaze. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  3. Fogg B (1998) Persuasive computers: perspectives and research directions. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, CHI ’98, pp 225–232

  4. Ham J, Bokhorst R, Cuijpers RH, van der Pol D, Cabibihan J-J (2011) Making robots persuasive: the influence of combining persuasive strategies (gazing and gestures) by a storytelling robot on its persuasive power. In: ICSR, pp 71–83

  5. Looije R, Neerincx MA, Cnossen F (2010) Persuasive robotic assistant for health self-management of older adults: design and evaluation of social behaviors. Int J Hum-Comput Stud 68(6):386–397

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Siegel M, Breazeal C, Norton MI (2009) Persuasive robotics: the influence of robot gender on human behavior. In: IROS, pp 2563–2568

  7. Roubroeks MAJ, Ham J, Midden CJH (2011) When artificial social agents try to persuade people: the role of social agency on the occurrence of psychological reactance. Int J Soc Robot 3(2):155–165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Ham J, Midden CJH (2010) Ambient persuasive technology needs little cognitive effort: the differential effects of cognitive load on lighting feedback versus factual feedback. In: PERSUASIVE, pp 132–142

  9. D’Mello S, McCauley L, Markham J (2005) A mechanism for human–robot interaction through informal voice commands. In: Robot and human interactive communication, 2005. ROMAN 2005. IEEE international workshop on, pp 184–189

  10. Sidner CL, Lee C, Morency L-P, Forlines C (2006) The effect of head-nod recognition in human–robot conversation. In: HRI, pp 290–296

  11. Mutlu B, Kanda T, Forlizzi J, Hodgins JK, Ishiguro H (2012) Conversational gaze mechanisms for humanlike robots. TiiS 1(2):12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Iwamura Y, Shiomi M, Kanda T, Ishiguro H, Hagita N (2011) Do elderly people prefer a conversational humanoid as a shopping assistant partner in supermarkets? In: HRI, pp 449–456

  13. Okada M (1995) Why doesn’t the computer speak with hesitation. Kyoritsu Shuppan, Tokyo

    Google Scholar 

  14. Goodwin C (2009) Embodied hearers and speakers constructing talk and action in interaction. Wadsworth, Belmont, pp 51–64

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bakhtin M (1986) The problem of speech genres. University of Texas Press, Austin, pp 60–102

    Google Scholar 

  16. Okada M, Kurihara S, Nakatsu R (1994) Incremental elaboration in generating and interpreting spontaneous speech. In: Proceedings of 3rd international conference on spoken language processing, pp 103–106

  17. Damiano L, Dumouchel P, Lehmann H (2012) Should empathic social robots have interiority? In: ICSR, pages 268–277

  18. Mccroskey JC, Sallinen A, Fayer JM, Richmond VP, Barraclough RA (1996) Nonverbal immediacy and cognitive learning: a cross-cultural investigation. Commun Educ 45(3):200–211

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Chidambaram V, Chiang Y-H, Mutlu B (2012) Designing persuasive robots: how robots might persuade people using vocal and nonverbal cues. In: HRI, pp 293–300

  20. Gibbs RW (2005) Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  21. Seeing Machine, FaceLab face and eye tracking system (2004) http://www.seeingmachines.com. Canberra ACT 2601

  22. Lutz R, Swasy JL (1977) Integrating cognitive structure and cognitive response approaches to monitoring communications effects. Assoc Consum Res 4(1):363–371

    Google Scholar 

  23. Kuijlaars ABJ (2001) Book review: “a course in approximation theory” by ward cheney and will light. J Approx Theory 112(2):318

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by both Grant-in-Aid for scientific research of KIBAN-B (26280102) and Grant-in-Aid for scientific research for HOUGA (24650053) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Toyohashi University of Technology, 1-1 Hibarigaoka, Tempaku, Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan

    Naoki Ohshima, Yusuke Ohyama, Yuki Odahara, P. Ravindra S. De Silva & Michio Okada

Authors
  1. Naoki Ohshima
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yusuke Ohyama
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yuki Odahara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. P. Ravindra S. De Silva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Michio Okada
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Naoki Ohshima.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ohshima, N., Ohyama, Y., Odahara, Y. et al. Talking-Ally: The Influence of Robot Utterance Generation Mechanism on Hearer Behaviors. Int J of Soc Robotics 7, 51–62 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0273-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0273-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation