Paper Info
Title
Can software agents influence human relations?: balance theory in agent-mediated communities
Abstract
We sought to create a social embodied conversational agent to support group interactions, using 'balance theory' from social science research on human-human relations. We conducted an experiment to evaluate the social ECA's effectiveness in a group situation, depending upon how strongly it mediated the conversation among group members. First, we confirmed that it could win favorable feelings from subjects by showing an agreeing attitude to them and, conversely, unfavorable feelings by showing a disagreeing attitude. Next, we validated balance theory as a rule governing both agent-human relations and human relations if the social ECA highly mediated the conversation. We found that the social ECA's effectiveness was very low if it did not control turn-taking, and if the human pair had a chance to converse extensively with one another. Conversation analysis corroborated these results.
Year
DOI
Venue
2003
10.1145/860575.860691
AAMAS
Keywords
Field
DocType
balance theory,human relation,human pair,software agent,group interaction,agent-mediated community,disagreeing attitude,conversation analysis,social science research,group member,social eca,group situation,social science,virtual environment
Social psychology,Conversation,Computer science,Knowledge management,Artificial intelligence,Dialog system,Balance theory,Converse,Support group,Embodied agent,Embodied cognition,Conversation analysis,Machine learning
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
1-58113-683-8
23
1.72
References 
Authors
10
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Hideyuki Nakanishi146967.21
Satoshi Nakazawa2232.06
Ishida, Toru33021490.20
Katsuya Takanashi44913.40
Katherine Isbister5934120.23