A preliminary exploration of implications of the media equation on IR systems

In this study, we examined the effects of the media equation on Web search engine. We constructed four systems that combined two types of character (human, robot) and two ways of speaking (authority, modest) and a base system that has no characters or speaking. The experiment was conducted to compare impressions and evaluations of these systems. The results showed that (1) the impression of the system changes by adding human elements to the system, (2) the evaluation of the system changes by changing the characters and messages of the system, even if such systems have the same performances, (3) modest messages had a modest impression, (4) the impression of a modest human is greater than that of an authoritative human, (5) human characters are more trusted when sending modest messages, and (6) robot characters are more trusted when sending authoritative messages.