A second chance to make a first impression? How appearance and nonverbal behavior affect perceived warmth and competence of virtual agents over time

Bergmann K, Eyssel FA, Kopp S. A second chance to make a first impression? How appearance and nonverbal behavior affect perceived warmth and competence of virtual agents over time. In: Walker M, Neff M, Paiva A, Nakano Y, eds. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer; 2012: 126-138.First impressions of others are fundamental for the further develop- ment of a relationship and are thus of major importance for the design of vir- tual agents, too. We addressed the question whether there is a second chance for first impressions with regard to the major dimensions of social cognition–warmth and competence. We employed a novel experimental set-up that combined agent appearance (robot-like vs. human-like) and agent behavior (gestures present vs. absent) of virtual agents as between-subject factors with a repeated measures de- sign. Results indicate that ratings of warmth depend on interaction effects of time and agent appearance, while evaluations of competence seem to depend on the interaction of time and nonverbal behavior. Implications of these results for basic and applied research on intelligent virtual agents will be discussed