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Users, Tasks, and Conversational Agents: A Personality Study

Published: 09 November 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Conversational Agents (CA) have become one of the common user interfaces in many online domains. In this paper, we ask whether users have a preference about the personality of CAs, and whether this preference changes depending on the length and type of the tasks CAs are used for. In an online study (N = 410), we investigated three different CA personalities (introvert, extrovert, and non-personified) in four different tasks with different natures and lengths (teaching, booking, todo, and weather). Most of the participants preferred to interact with a conversational agent (introvert or extrovert) as opposed to a non-personified interface, regardless of their own personality. Results suggested that this preference may be task dependent: when CA’s goal was to provide information, participants preferred an extrovert agent. We did not observe a difference between the preference for introvert and extrovert agents when the task’s goal was to complete an assignment.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      HAI '21: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction
      November 2021
      447 pages
      ISBN:9781450386203
      DOI:10.1145/3472307
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      Published: 09 November 2021

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      Author Tags

      1. Conversational Agents
      2. extroversion
      3. personality
      4. task
      5. time perception

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      HAI '21: International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction
      November 9 - 11, 2021
      Virtual Event, Japan

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      • (2024)Navigating Communication Patterns and Personalities in User Preference During Human-Agent InteractionProceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3687272.3690913(447-449)Online publication date: 24-Nov-2024
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      • (2024)Taking the Chat out of Chatbot? Collecting User Reviews with Chatbots and Web FormsJournal of Management Information Systems10.1080/07421222.2023.230117541:1(146-177)Online publication date: 19-Feb-2024
      • (2023)Fintech Agents: Technologies and TheoriesElectronics10.3390/electronics1215330112:15(3301)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2023
      • (2023)Comparing How a Chatbot References User Utterances from Previous Chatting Sessions: An Investigation of Users' Privacy Concerns and PerceptionsProceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3623809.3623875(105-114)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
      • (2023)The Bot on Speaking Terms: The Effects of Conversation Architecture on Perceptions of Conversational AgentsProceedings of the 5th International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces10.1145/3571884.3597139(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2023
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      • (2023)Exploring the context of use for voice user interfaces: Toward context‐dependent user experience quality testingJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.2618Online publication date: 14-Nov-2023

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