The effect of personal pronouns on users and the social role of conversational agents

Jianhong Qu, Ronggang Zhou and Zhe Chen

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2022, vol. 41, issue 16, 3470-3486

Abstract: There is a growing tendency for users to expect conversational agents (CAs) to recognise social cues and follow interpersonal communication principles to enhance their subjective evaluation. Therefore, this paper studies how personal pronouns should be used by CAs in response to users. We conducted a 3 (CAs’ personal pronoun) × 3 (users’ personal pronoun) × 2 (participants’gender) mixed design. this study used mixed methods based on an experimental design, including ratings, forced choices and interviews, for mutual confirmation. The findings indicate that first, users prefer that CAs use second-person pronouns. Second, there is also turn-taking and convergence tendency between users and CAs in personal pronoun use. Third, there are gender differences in personal pronoun preferences and relationship positions toward CAs. These results can inform personalised voice interaction and humanlike design and help build closer relationships between users and CAs in future human–computer interactions.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2021.1999500

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