Effects of echoic mimicry using hummed sounds on human-computer interaction

Authors:
Noriko Suzuki;Yugo Takeuchi;Kazuo Ishii;Michio Okada
Affiliations:
ATR Media Information Science Laboratories, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan and Graduate School of Human Informatics, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chigusa-ku, Nagoya- ...;Faculty of Information, Shizuoka University, 3-5-1, Johoku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka 432-8011, Japan and ATR Media Information Science Laboratories, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto 61 ...;Entertainment Robot Company, Sony Corporation, 5-11-3, Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0004, Japan;ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan
Venue:
Speech Communication
Year:
2003

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Abstract

Our research goal is to investigate interpersonal relations involving empathy in human-computer interaction. We focus on mimicry behavior and its ability to elicit intentional stance of a partner in interaction. In this study, we conducted a psychological experiment to examine how prosodic mimicry by computers affects people. An interactive system in this experiment uses an animated character that mimics the prosodic features in a human's voice echoicly by synthesizing the hummed sounds. The sounds consist only of prosodic components similar to continuous humming of the open vowel /a/ or /o/ without any language information. The subjects completed a questionnaire to evaluate the character at different mimicry ratio. The results indicated the following possibilities: First, people favorably interpret a computer's simple response such as echoic mimicry using hummed sounds mixed with a slightly constant prosody response. Second, people may establish an interpersonal relations with a computer through such facilitated interaction.