Communication with robots: evidence from a Web-based experiment on human-computer interaction

Natural human-computer interaction is an increasingly relevant topic, which, however, is rather difficult to investigate in an empirical fashion. Whereas recent studies have addressed the problems of adding human communicative abilities to robots, not much is known about communicative strategies humans use with non-human partners. The present study aimed to explore factors determining the communicative success in human-robot interaction, using an on-screen conversation agent. A more specific question regarded possible influences of user strategies on different objective and subjective measures of communicative success. Results were rather heterogeneous reflecting the complexity of the interaction processes involved. Even though the manipulation of the user strategy resulted in qualitative and quantitative changes in communicative behaviour, it did not seem to affect the communicative success. Rather, the general attitude of the user towards robots appeared to have a relatively stronger impact on subjective success measures.