Please note: This PhD seminar will be given online.
Jessy
Ceha,
PhD
candidate
David
R.
Cheriton
School
of
Computer
Science
Supervisor: Professor Edith Law
This study explores the influence of expressive auditory gestures added to the speech of a pedagogical agent on the human-agent relationship and learning outcomes. In a between-subjects experiment, 41 participants assumed the role of a tutor to teach a voice-based agent. The agent used either: expressive interjections (e.g., “yay”, “hmm”, “oh”), brief expressive musical executions, or no auditory gestures at all (control condition), throughout the interaction. Overall, the results indicate that both gestures can positively affect the interaction, but in particular, interjections can significantly increase feelings of emotional rapport with the agent and enhance motivation in learners. The implications of our findings will be discussed, as our work adds to the understanding of conversational agent design and can be useful for education as well as other domains in which dialogue systems are used.
To join this PhD seminar on Zoom, please go to https://uwaterloo.zoom.us/j/96450792400?pwd=ZkJHZEJ0VEVqWUJXK29VQ0xha01uUT09.