Persuading users through counseling dialogue with a conversational agent

We present an empirical study of the effect of a computer agent designed to engage a user in a persuasive counseling dialogue on attitudes towards regular exercise. We used two manipulations: (1) how closely the agent simulated human conversation, using either an embodied conversational agent (ECA) or a text-only agent, and (2) whether the agent attempted to build a user-agent relationship through social dialogue. Participants demonstrated a significant increase in positive attitudes (persuasion) following the persuasive dialogue; however, this change was significantly smaller when the agent used social dialogue. Participants’ perceptions of the dialogue were most positive for an ECA with social dialogue, or a text-only agent without. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation] User Interfaces—Evaluation/methodology, Graphical user interfaces, Interaction styles, Natural language, Theory and methods, Voice I/O. General Terms Measurement, Expe...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: PERSUASIVE
• Authors: Daniel Schulman, Timothy W. Bickmore
• Keywords: Conversational Agent, Emerging Technology, PERSUASIVE 2009, Social Dialogue, Text-only Agent