The moral foreign language effect is stable across presentation modalities

YesPeoples’ judgments and decisions often change when made in their foreign language. Existing research testing this foreign language effect has predominantly used text-based stimuli with little research focusing on the impact of listening to audio stimuli on the effect. The only existing study on this topic found shifts in people’s moral decisions only in the audio modality. Firstly, by reanalyzing the data from this previous study and by collecting data in an additional experiment, we found no consistent effects of using foreign language on moral judgments. Secondly, in both datasets we found no significant language by modality interaction. Overall, our results highlight the need for more robust testing of the foreign language effect, and its boundary conditions. However, modality of presentation does not appear to be a candidate for explaining its variability. Data and materials for this experiment are available at https://osf.io/qbjxn/

Utilizing fillers for addressing speaking challenges, improving self-confidence and motivation in EFL learning

This qualitative case study aimed to explore fillers usage to address speaking challenges related to the improvement of self-confidence and motivation in speaking practices done by two EFL learners of the English Department of one of the Islamic Universities in Malang, Indonesia. Data were collected through observations and in-depth interviews to two students employing filler strategies to address speaking challenges related to the improvement of self-confidence and motivation during their speaking exercises. The research revealed that both learners used fillers to address speaking challenges during the conversation due to their linguistic components shortage such as a limited mastery of vocabularies and having a little understanding on grammar. Fillers might bring them to have more self-confidence in speaking practices shown by not being afraid of making mistakes when they practice speaking with their speaking partners. Fillers might bring them to have more motivation in speaking shown by their enthusiasm to get involved in the discussion whether in group or class discussions. Thus fillers usage is prominence due to its potential to address speaking challenges, enhance self-confidence and motivation, eventually contributing to an overall improvement in language proficiency particularly in speaking skill

The comparison between a Korean-American and an Indonesian singer on the use of fillers in spontaneous conversation

ENGLISH: A hesitation phenomena in a language is often produced by humans in oral communication.It can be in the term of filler or pause, uncertainty, or difficulty in continuing the sentence. To increase a speaker's awareness of the fillers in communication, the researcher tried to investigate the phenomenon of fillers in spontaneous communication. This research aims to analyze types of fillersand compare the similarities and differences of fillers produced by two speakers with different mother tongues. The speakers in this research were a Korean-American speaker, Eric Nam, and an Indonesian speaker, Raisa Andriana. The researcher used a descriptive qualitative method to analyze the data using words and phrases in sentences. The theory used is the framework analysis proposed by Rose (1998) about the types of fillers. Based on the analysis that has been done, the researcher found nine types of fillers which were divided into two categories, namely lexicalized and non-lexicalized fillers. There was no significant distinction in the use of filler in the conversation. On the contrary, many similarities appeared in the use of filler. The results of this research are expected to help readers or future researchers to understand the filler phenomenon that often occurs in conversation. The researcher suggests further researchers who are interested in studying fillers to conceive this research. Thus the results of the research will be more suitable. INDONESIA: Fenomena keragu-raguan dalam berbahasa seringkali dihasilkan oleh manusia dalam komunikasi lisan. Keragu-raguan tersebut biasanya dalam bentuk pengisi atau jeda, ketidakpastian, ataupun kesulitan dalam melanjutkan kalimat. Untuk meningkatkan kesadaran seorang penutur terhadap adanya pengisi dalam komunikasi, penelitian ini mencoba untuk meneliti lebih dalam tentang fenomena fillerdalam komunikasi spontan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis jenis-jenis pengisi dan membandingkan persamaan dan perbedaan pengisi yang dihasilkan oleh dua pembicara dengan bahasa ibu yang berbeda. Pembicara dalam penelitian ini adalah seorang penutur Korea-Amerika, Eric Nam, dan seorang penutur Bahasa Indonesia, Raisa Andriana. Metode yang digunakan oleh peneliti adalah deskriptif kualitatif untuk menganalisa data dalam bentuk kata dan frasa dalam kalimat. Teori yang digunakan adalah kerangka analisis oleh Rose (1998) tentang jenis-jenis pengisi. Berdasarkan analisis yang telah dilakukan, peneliti menemukan sembilan jenis pengisi yang dibedakan menjadi dua kategori yaitu leksikal dan non-leksikal. Dalam percakapan tersebut, tidak terlihat perbedaan yang cukup signifikan dalam penggunaan pengisi, sebaliknya, banyak persamaan yang muncul dalam penggunaan pengisi. Hasil penelitian ini diharapkan dapat membantu pembaca atau peneliti selanjutnya untuk memahami fenomena pengisi yang sering terjadi dalam percakapan. Peneliti menyarankan untuk penelitiselanjutnya yang tertarik untuk mengkaji pengisi agar bisa mengembangkan dan menyempurnakan penelitian ini, dengan demikian hasil penelitian akan menjadi lebih baik. ARABIC: غالبًا ما تحدث ظاهرة الشك في اللغة عند البشر في التواصل الشفهي. يكون الشكعادةفي شكل حشو أو توقفات أو عدم يقين أو صعوبة في استمرار الجملة. لزيادة وعي المتحدث بوجود مواد مالئة في التواصل، تحاول هذه الدراسة إجراء دراسة أعمق لظاهرة الحشو في الاتصال العفوي. تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى تحليل أنواع الحشو ومقارنة أوجه التشابه والاختلاف بين الحشوات التي ينتجها ناطقين لسانهما المحليمختلفتا. المتحدثان في هذه الدراسة كانا المتحدث الكوري-الأمريكي، إريك نام، والمتحدثة الإندونيسي، رايسا أندريانا. الطريقة التي استخدمتها الباحثة هي المنهج الوصفي النوعي لتحليل البيانات في شكل كلمات وعبارات في جمل. النظرية المستخدمة هي الإطار التحليلي لـروز (1998)عن أنواع الحشوات. بناءً على التحليل الذي تم إجراؤه، وجدت الباحثة تسعة أنواع من الحشو مقسمة إلى فئتين، معجمي وغير معجمي. في المحادثة، لم يكن هناك فرق كبير في استخدام مواد الحشو، بل على العكس، ظهرت العديد من أوجه التشابه في استخدام مواد الحشو. من المتوقع أن تساعد نتائج هذه الدراسة القراء أو الباحثين المستقبليين على فهم ظاهرة الحشو التي تحدث غالبًا في المحادثة. تقترح الباحثة الباحثين المهتمين بدراسة مواد الحشو من أجل تطوير هذا البحث وإتقانه، وبالتالي ستكون نتائج البحث أفضل

Affective Expressions in Conversational Agents for Learning Environments: Effects of curiosity, humour, and expressive auditory gestures

Conversational agents -- systems that imitate natural language discourse -- are becoming an increasingly prevalent human-computer interface, being employed in various domains including healthcare, customer service, and education. In education, conversational agents, also known as pedagogical agents, can be used to encourage interaction; which is considered crucial for the learning process. Though pedagogical agents have been designed for learners of diverse age groups and subject matter, they retain the overarching goal of eliciting learning outcomes, which can be broken down into cognitive, skill-based, and affective outcomes. Motivation is a particularly important affective outcome, as it can influence what, when, and how we learn. Understanding, supporting, and designing for motivation is therefore of great importance for the advancement of learning technologies. This thesis investigates how pedagogical agents can promote motivation in learners. Prior research has explored various features of the design of pedagogical agents and what effects they have on learning outcomes, and suggests that agents using social cues can adapt the learning environment to enhance both affective and cognitive outcomes. One social cue that is suggested to be of importance for enhancing learner motivation is the expression or simulation of affect in the agent. Informed by research and theory across multiple domains, three affective expressions are investigated: curiosity, humour, and expressive auditory gestures -- each aimed at enhancing motivation by adapting the learning environment in different ways, i.e., eliciting contagion effects, creating a positive learning experience, and strengthening the learner-agent relationship, respectively. Three studies are presented in which each expression was implemented in a separate type of agent: physically-embodied, text-based, and voice-based; with all agents taking on the role of a companion or less knowledgeable peer to the learner. The overall focus is on how each expression can be displayed, what the effects are on perception of the agent, and how it influences behaviour and learning outcomes. The studies result in theoretical contributions that add to our understanding of conversational agent design for learning environments. The findings provide support for: the simulation of curiosity, the use of certain humour styles, and the addition of expressive auditory gestures, in enhancing motivation in learners interacting with conversational agents; as well as indicating a need for further exploration of these strategies in future work

U2XECS : avaliação de usabilidade e experiência de usuário de sistemas conversacionais

Orientadora: Natasha Malveira Costa ValentimDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências Exatas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Informática. Defesa : Curitiba, 26/11/2020Inclui referências: p. 111-121Área de concentração: Ciência da ComputaçãoResumo: Devido ao aumento do uso das tecnologias nos ultimos anos, novas formas de interacao estao presentes no cotidiano da sociedade. A interacao baseada em voz, caracteristica dos Sistemas Conversacionais (SC), e um exemplo dessas novas formas de interagir. Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Frame, dispostivos Amazon Echo e Google Home sao exemplos de SCs que utilizam a voz do usuario para desempenhar tarefas. Os SCs tem despertado interesse tanto da industria como da academia, recebendo investimentos e fazendo parte de pesquisa em Interacao Humano-Computador (IHC) e Engenharia de Software (ES). Como qualquer outro sistema, e necessario que os SCs fornecam uma boa experiencia e que atendam as necessidades de seus usuarios. Nesse sentido, a avaliacao de Usabilidade e de Experiencia do Usuario (User eXperience - UX) e vista como etapa importante que contribui com a verificacao da qualidade dos SCs. Na avaliacao da Usabilidade, geralmente sao verificados atributos referentes as metas comportamentais do sistema, como a eficacia, eficiencia e satisfacao do usuario. Ja na avaliacao da UX, geralmente sao considerados os atributos ligados ao sentimento do usuarios, como emocao e motivacao. No entanto, atraves de dois Mapeamentos Sistematicos da Literatura (MSL), foi identificado que as tecnologias de avaliacao utilizadas para avaliar a Usabilidade e/ou UX dos SCs eram genericas, e poderiam avaliar qualquer tipo software. Alem disso, foram identificados alguns questionarios de avaliacao de Usabilidade ou UX de interfaces conversacionais. Entretanto, estas tecnologias consideram apenas um aspecto de qualidade, Usabilidade, ou UX. Os MSLs tambem identificaram que alguns pesquisadores utilizam questionarios que desenvolveram para seus proprios estudos, sem passar por um processo de avaliacao empirica. Sendo assim, o objetivo deste trabalho e fornecer uma tecnologia de avaliacao conjunta de Usabilidade e UX especifica para SCs, a U2XECS (Usability and User eXperience Evaluation of Conversational Systems). A U2XECS e uma tecnologia de avaliacao baseada em questionario que fornece afirmacoes de Usabilidade e UX especificas para avaliar SCs. O objetivo do U2XECS e orientar pesquisadores e desenvolvedores para identificar melhorias e percepcoes dos usuarios nestes sistemas. Alem dos MSLs e da proposicao da tecnologia, sao apresentados tambem tres estudos que foram realizados no processo de elaboracao e refinamento da tecnologia: um estudo exploratorio, um survey e um estudo de viabilidade. Os resultados evidenciaram pontos positivos da U2XECS relacionados a facilidade de uso, utilidade e intencoes de uso. Alem disso, foram identificadas oportunidades de melhoria, tais como afirmacoes ambiguas, mudanca na estrutura e no tamanho do questionario. Palavras-chave: Avaliacao de Usabilidade. Avaliacao de Experiencia de Usuario. Interacao Baseada em Voz. Sistemas Conversacionais.Abstract: Due to the increased use of technologies in recent years, new forms of interaction are present in society. The voice-based interaction, characteristic of Conversational Systems (CSs), is an example of these new interaction forms. Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Frame, Amazon Echo devices, and Google Home are examples of CSs that use the voice to perform tasks. The CSs have aroused interest from both industry and academia, receiving investments and being part of research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Software Engineering (SE). Like any other system, CSs must provide a good experience and meet the needs of their users. In this sense, the evaluation of Usability and User eXperience (UX) is seen as an essential step that contributes to verifying the quality of the CSs. In the Usability evaluation, attributes regarding the system's behavioral goals, such as effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction, are usually verified. In the UX evaluation, attributes related to the user's feelings, such as emotion and motivation, are usually considered. However, through two Systematic Mapping Studies (SMS), it was identified that the evaluation technologies used to evaluate the Usability and/or UX of the CSs were generic and could evaluate any software. Besides, some Usability or UX evaluation questionnaires of conversational interfaces were identified. However, these technologies consider only one aspect of quality, Usability, or UX. SMSs also identified that some researchers use questionnaires that they developed for their studies without going through an empirical evaluation process. Therefore, this work aims to provide a CS-specific joint Usability and UX evaluation technology, the U2XECS (Usability and User eXperience Evaluation of Conversational Systems). U2XECS is a questionnaire-based evaluation technology that provides Usability and UX specific statements to evaluate CSs. The goal of U2XECS is to guide researchers and developers to identify improvements and user perceptions in these systems. Besides the SMSs and the technology proposition, three studies that were carried out in the process of elaboration and refinement of the technology are presented: an exploratory study, a survey, and a feasibility study. The results showed positive points of U2XECS related to ease of use, utility, and intentions of use. Besides, opportunities for improvement were identified, such as ambiguous statements, change in the structure and size of the questionnaire. Keywords: Usability Evaluation. User Experience Evaluation. Voice-Based Interaction. Conversational Systems