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The Effects of an Embodied Conversational Agent’s Nonverbal Behavior on User’s Evaluation and Behavioral Mimicry

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Book cover Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4722))

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Abstract

Against the background that recent studies on embodied conversational agents demonstrate the importance of their behavior, an experimental study is presented that assessed the effects of different nonverbal behaviors of an embodied conversational agent on the users´ experiences and evaluations as well as on their behavior. 50 participants conducted a conversation with different versions of the virtual agent Max, whose nonverbal communication was manipulated with regard to eyebrow movements and self-touching gestures. In a 2x2 between subjects design each behavior was varied in two levels: occurrence of the behavior compared to the absence of the behavior. Results show that self-touching gestures compared to no self-touching gestures have positive effects on the experiences and evaluations of the user, whereas eyebrow raising evoked less positive experiences and evaluations in contrast to no eyebrow raising. The nonverbal behavior of the participants was not affected by the agent’s nonverbal behavior.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Duisburg-Essen, Forsthausweg 2, 47057 Duisburg, Germany

    Nicole C. Krämer

  2. University of Cologne, Herbert-Lewin-Str. 2, 50931 Köln, Germany

    Nina Simons

  3. University Bielefeld, PO box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

    Stefan Kopp

Authors
  1. Nicole C. Krämer
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  2. Nina Simons
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  3. Stefan Kopp
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Editor information

Catherine Pelachaud Jean-Claude Martin Elisabeth André Gérard Chollet Kostas Karpouzis Danielle Pelé

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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Krämer, N.C., Simons, N., Kopp, S. (2007). The Effects of an Embodied Conversational Agent’s Nonverbal Behavior on User’s Evaluation and Behavioral Mimicry. In: Pelachaud, C., Martin, JC., André, E., Chollet, G., Karpouzis, K., Pelé, D. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4722. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74997-4_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74997-4_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74996-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74997-4

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