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Inconsequential Appearances: An Analysis of Anthropomorphic Language in Voice Assistant Forums

Published: 25 April 2020 Publication History

Abstract

We compared anthropomorphic language use in online forums about the Amazon Echo Show, Q.bo One, and Anki Vector; carrying out a content analysis of forum and Reddit threads, as well as a Facebook group. Our expectation was to find the highest amount of anthropomorphism for Q.bo One due to its humanoid shape, however, findings suggest that the life-likeness of the artifact is not pre-dominantly linked to the appearance, but to its interactivity and attributed agency and gender.

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  • (2023)Do Robots Have Sex? A ProlegomenonInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-023-01052-715:11(1707-1723)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
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  1. Inconsequential Appearances: An Analysis of Anthropomorphic Language in Voice Assistant Forums

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      CHI EA '20: Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
      April 2020
      4474 pages
      ISBN:9781450368193
      DOI:10.1145/3334480
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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      Published: 25 April 2020

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      Author Tags

      1. anthropomorphism
      2. appearance design
      3. forum analysis
      4. gender attribution
      5. human-likeness
      6. voice assistants

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      Cited By

      View all
      • (2024)Towards an Integrative Framework for Robot Personality ResearchACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/364001013:1(1-22)Online publication date: 10-Jan-2024
      • (2023)Interacting with Masculinities: A Scoping ReviewExtended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544549.3585770(1-12)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
      • (2023)Do Robots Have Sex? A ProlegomenonInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-023-01052-715:11(1707-1723)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
      • (2022)Keep it Short: A Comparison of Voice Assistants’ Response BehaviorProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517684(1-12)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
      • (2022)Benefits of an Interactive Robot Character in Immersive Puzzle Games2022 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN53752.2022.9900828(37-44)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2022
      • (2021)Merely a Conventional ‘Diffusion’ Problem? On the Adoption Process of Anki Vector2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515369(712-719)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2021

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