Computers that smile: Humor in the interface

It is certainly not the case that wen we consider research on the role of human characteristics in the user interface of computers that no attention has been paid to the role of humor. However, when we compare efforts in this area with efforts and experiments that attempt to demonstrate the positive role of general emotion modelling in the user interface, then we must conclude that this attention is still low. As we all know, sometimes the computer is a source of frustration rather than a source of enjoyment. And indeed we see research projects that aim at recognizing a user’s frustration, rather than his enjoyment. However, rather than detecting frustration, and maybe reacting on it in a humorous way, we would like to prevent frustration by making interaction with a computer more natural and more enjoyable. For that reason we are working on multimodal interaction and embodied conversational agents. In the interaction with embodied conversational agents verbal and nonverbal communication are equally important. Multimodal emotion display and detection are among our advanced research issues, and investigations in the role of humor in human-computer interaction is one of them

No Grice: Computers that Lie, Deceive and Conceal

In the future our daily life interactions with other people, with computers, robots and smart environments will be recorded and interpreted by computers or embedded intelligence in environments, furniture, robots, displays, and wearables. These sensors record our activities, our behavior, and our interactions. Fusion of such information and reasoning about such information makes it possible, using computational models of human behavior and activities, to provide context- and person-aware interpretations of human behavior and activities, including determination of attitudes, moods, and emotions. Sensors include cameras, microphones, eye trackers, position and proximity sensors, tactile or smell sensors, et cetera. Sensors can be embedded in an environment, but they can also move around, for example, if they are part of a mobile social robot or if they are part of devices we carry around or are embedded in our clothes or body. \ud \ud Our daily life behavior and daily life interactions are recorded and interpreted. How can we use such environments and how can such environments use us? Do we always want to cooperate with these environments; do these environments always want to cooperate with us? In this paper we argue that there are many reasons that users or rather human partners of these environments do want to keep information about their intentions and their emotions hidden from these smart environments. On the other hand, their artificial interaction partner may have similar reasons to not give away all information they have or to treat their human partner as an opponent rather than someone that has to be supported by smart technology.\ud \ud This will be elaborated in this paper. We will survey examples of human-computer interactions where there is not necessarily a goal to be explicit about intentions and feelings. In subsequent sections we will look at (1) the computer as a conversational partner, (2) the computer as a butler or diary companion, (3) the computer as a teacher or a trainer, acting in a virtual training environment (a serious game), (4) sports applications (that are not necessarily different from serious game or education environments), and games and entertainment applications

The media equation and team formation: Further evidence for experience as a moderator

This study extends previous media equation research, which showed that interdependence but not identity leads to team affiliation effects with computers. The current study used an identity manipulation that more closely replicated the manipulation used in traditional team and group formation research than the original media equation research in this area. The study also sought further evidence for the relationship between experience with computers and behaviour reflecting a media equation pattern of results. Sixty students from the University of Queensland voluntarily participated in the study. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: control, human team (a team made of only humans) or human-computer team (a team made of computers and humans). Questionnaire measures assessing participants’ affective experience, attitudes and opinions were taken. Participants of high experience, but not low experience, when assigned to either of the team conditions enjoyed the tasks completed on the computer more than participants who worked on their own. When assigned to a team that involved a computer, participants of high experience, but not low experience, reacted negatively towards the computer (in comparison to high experience participants working on their own or on a team without a computer as a team member) – rating the information provided by the computer lower, rating themselves as less influenced by the computer and changing their own ratings and rankings to be less like those of the computer. These results are interpreted in light of the ‘Black Sheep’ literature and recognized as a media equation pattern of results

Spice up Your Chat: The Intentions and Sentiment Effects of Using Emoji

Emojis, as a new way of conveying nonverbal cues, are widely adopted in computer-mediated communications. In this paper, first from a message sender perspective, we focus on people's motives in using four types of emojis -- positive, neutral, negative, and non-facial. We compare the willingness levels of using these emoji types for seven typical intentions that people usually apply nonverbal cues for in communication. The results of extensive statistical hypothesis tests not only report the popularities of the intentions, but also uncover the subtle differences between emoji types in terms of intended uses. Second, from a perspective of message recipients, we further study the sentiment effects of emojis, as well as their duplications, on verbal messages. Different from previous studies in emoji sentiment, we study the sentiments of emojis and their contexts as a whole. The experiment results indicate that the powers of conveying sentiment are different between four emoji types, and the sentiment effects of emojis vary in the contexts of different valences.Comment: 10 pages, published at ICWSM'1

CoMIC : an exploration into computer-mediated intercultural communication

This thesis explores how cultural differences manifest themselves in computermediated intercultural communication (CoMIC). This study particularly looks at the role and use of digital nonverbals (DNVs) and their regulatory functions. The data analyzed is from a global virtual team working together for a period of three months. The grounded theory method has been employed to code the electronic transcript of the team\u27s communication. Furthermore, the participants were surveyed regarding their personal backgrounds, their work, and their perception of the communication processes that took place. The study shows that in an intercultural communication process DNVs are used to avoid intercultural misunderstandings and to underline the various communication styles. The different styles, hand in hand with the DNVs used, vary depending on the team\u27s overall situation. However, the absence of DNVs can be an indicator for a state of crisis

Oral, written, and electronic patterns in computer-mediated communication

"June 1993."Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22).by JoAnne Yates [and] Wanda J. Orlikowski