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How Language of Interaction Affects the User Perception of a Robot

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Social Robotics (ICSR 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 14453 ))

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Abstract

Spoken language is the most natural way for a human to communicate with a robot. It may seem intuitive that a robot should communicate with users in their native language. However, it is not clear if a user’s perception of a robot is affected by the language of interaction. We investigated this question by conducting a study with twenty-three native Czech participants who were also fluent in English. The participants were tasked with instructing the Pepper robot on where to place objects on a shelf. The robot was controlled remotely using the Wizard-of-Oz technique. We collected data through questionnaires, video recordings, and a post-experiment feedback session. The results of our experiment show that people perceive an English-speaking robot as more intelligent than a Czech-speaking robot (z = 18.00, p-value = 0.02). This finding highlights the influence of language on human-robot interaction. Furthermore, we discuss the feedback obtained from the participants via the post-experiment sessions and its implications for HRI design.

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Priority Research Area DigiWorld PSP: U1U/P06/NO/02.19 under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University, and by the National Science Centre, Poland, under the OPUS call in the Weave programme under the project number K/NCN/000142.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Science Department, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

    Barbara Sienkiewicz & Bipin Indurkhya

  2. Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics, Czech Technical University, Prague, Czechia

    Gabriela Sejnova & Michal Vavrecka

  3. Institute of Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland

    Paul Gajewski

Authors
  1. Barbara Sienkiewicz
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  2. Gabriela Sejnova
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  3. Paul Gajewski
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  4. Michal Vavrecka
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  5. Bipin Indurkhya
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara Sienkiewicz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    Abdulaziz Al Ali

  2. Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    John-John Cabibihan

  3. Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    Nader Meskin

  4. University of Naples Federico II, Napoli, Italy

    Silvia Rossi

  5. Qingdao University, Qingdao, China

    Wanyue Jiang

  6. The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Hongsheng He

  7. National University of Singapore, Queenstown, Singapore

    Shuzhi Sam Ge

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Sienkiewicz, B., Sejnova, G., Gajewski, P., Vavrecka, M., Indurkhya, B. (2024). How Language of Interaction Affects the User Perception of a Robot. In: Ali, A.A., et al. Social Robotics. ICSR 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14453 . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8715-3_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8715-3_26

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-99-8715-3

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