Help! Is my chatbot falling into the uncanny valley? An empirical study of user experience in human-chatbot interaction

Advances in artificial intelligence strengthen chatbots’ ability to resemble human conversational agents. For some application areas, it may be tempting not to be transparent regarding a conversational agent’s nature as chatbot or human. However, the uncanny valley theory suggests that such lack in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human technology Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 30 - 54
Main Authors: Skjuve, Marita, Haugstveit, Ida Maria, Følstad, Asbjørn, Brandtzaeg, Petter Bae
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Jyväskylä Centre of Sociological Research (NGO) 01.02.2019
Centre of Sociological Research, Szczecin, Poland
Subjects:
Agents (artificial intelligence)
chatbot
Chatbots
Conversational artificial intelligence
Empirical analysis
human–chatbot interaction
Qualitative analysis
uncanny valley
User experience
ISSN:1795-6889, 1795-6889
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Advances in artificial intelligence strengthen chatbots’ ability to resemble human conversational agents. For some application areas, it may be tempting not to be transparent regarding a conversational agent’s nature as chatbot or human. However, the uncanny valley theory suggests that such lack in transparency may cause uneasy feelings in the user. In this study, we combined quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate this issue. First, we used a 2 x 2 experimental research design (n = 28) to investigate effects of lack in transparency on the perceived pleasantness of the conversation in addition to perceived human likeness and affinity for the conversational agent. Second, we conducted an exploratory analysis of qualitative participant reports on these conversations. We did not find that a lack in transparency negatively affected user experience, but we identified three factors important to participants’ assessments. The findings are of theoretical and practical significance and motivate future research.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1795-6889
1795-6889
DOI:10.17011/ht/urn.201902201607