International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
An open architecture for robot entertainment
AGENTS '97 Proceedings of the first international conference on Autonomous agents
When the interface is a talking dinosaur: learning across media with ActiMates Barney
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Emotion model for life-like agent and its evaluation
AAAI '98/IAAI '98 Proceedings of the fifteenth national/tenth conference on Artificial intelligence/Innovative applications of artificial intelligence
Sympathetic interfaces: using a plush toy to direct synthetic characters
Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Designing PETS: a personal electronic teller of stories
Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Pegasus: a spoken language interface for on-line air travel planning
HLT '94 Proceedings of the workshop on Human Language Technology
Social effects of the speed of hummed sounds on human-computer interaction
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies - Special issue on HCI research in Japan
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In this paper, we describe results from an experiment on interaction with artificial creatures that mimic the human voice echoicly using inarticulate sounds. We consider that humans axe apt to find a partner's intention or emotion towards themselves, when the partner mimics their utterances echoicly at the prosodic level. As a result, we regard that empathic interaction emerges between them. We test this hypothesis by having subjects interact with five artificial creatures that give different rates of their respective response as mimicked voice at the prosodic level: (a) 100%, (b) 80%, (c) 50%, (d) 20%, and (e) 0%. For the remaining voice probability expressing non-mimicry voice, we have constant prosody voice like a back-channel response. The subjects' evaluations of the creatures were collected with a questionnaire according to their impressions on their interaction with the creatures: cooperation, friendliness, memory retention, sympathy, and verbal understanding. We consider that the results support our hypothesis that echoic mimicry is key for the emergence of empathic interaction between humans and computers.