To Please in a Pod: Employing an Anthropomorphic Agent-Interlocutor to Enhance Trust and User Experience in an Autonomous, Self-Driving Vehicle

Large, David; Harrington, Kyle; Burnett, Gary; Luton, Jacob; Thomas, Peter; Bennett, Pete

Abstract

Recognising that one of the aims of conversation is to build, maintain and strengthen positive relationships with others, the study explores whether passengers in an autonomous vehicle display similar behaviour during transactions with an on-board conversational agent-interface; moreover, whether related attributes (e.g. trust) transcend to the vehicle itself. Employing a counterbalanced, within-subjects design, thirty-four participants were transported in a self-driving pod using an expansive testing arena. Participants undertook three journeys with an anthropomorphic agent-interlocutor (via Wizard-of-Oz), a voice-command interface, or a traditional touch-surface; each delivered equivalent task-related information. Results show that the agent-interlocutor was the most preferred interface, attracting the highest ratings of trust, and significantly enhancing the pleasure and sense of control over the journey experience, despite the inclusion of ‘trust challenges’ as part of the design. The findings can help support the design and development of in-vehicle agent-based voice interfaces to enhance trust and user experience in autonomous cars.

Citation

Large, D., Harrington, K., Burnett, G., Luton, J., Thomas, P., & Bennett, P. (2019, September). To Please in a Pod: Employing an Anthropomorphic Agent-Interlocutor to Enhance Trust and User Experience in an Autonomous, Self-Driving Vehicle. Presented at AutomotiveUI '19: 11th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, Utrecht, Netherlands

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: AutomotiveUI '19: 11th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications
• Start Date: Sep 21, 2019
• End Date: Sep 25, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Jul 10, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Sep 21, 2019
• Publication Date: Sep 21, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 10, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 13, 2019
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Pages: 49-59
• Book Title: AutomotiveUI'19 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications
• ISBN: 9781450368841
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3342197.3344545
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2293527
• Publisher URL: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3342197.3344545
• Related Public URLs: https://www.auto-ui.org/19/
• Additional Information: (AutoUI2019)
• Contract Date: Jul 10, 2019