Small Group Interactions with Voice-User Interfaces: Exploring Social Embodiment, Rapport, and Engagement

More and more voice-user interfaces (VUIs), such as smart speakers like Amazon Alexa or social robots like Jibo or Cozmo, are entering multi-user environments including homes. VUIs can utilize multimodal cues such as graphics, expressive sounds, and movement to convey social engagement, affecting how users perceive agents as social others. Reciprocal relationships with VUIs, i.e., relationships with give-and-take between the VUI and user, are of key interest as they are more likely to foster rapport and emotional engagement, and lead to successful collaboration. Through an elicitation study with three commercially available VUIs, we explore small group interactions (n=33 participants) focused on the behaviors participants display to various VUIs to understand (1) reciprocal interactions between VUIs and participants and among small groups and (2) how participants engage with VUIs as the interface’s embodiment becomes more socially capable. The discussion explores (1) theories of sociability applied to the users’ behaviors seen with the VUIs, and (2) the group contexts where VUIs that build reciprocal relationships with users can become a powerful persuasive technology and a collaborative companion. We conclude the discussion with recommendations for promoting reciprocity from participants and, therefore, fostering rapport and emotional engagement in VUI interactions. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing → User studies; Natural language interfaces.

1 Introduction

When technology engages with people in seemingly social ways, humans respond socially to the device [63, 71]. The human-robot interaction (HRI) community has long been interested with how interactive technologies, including robots and voice-user interfaces (VUI), will be used within collaborative and multi-user spaces [12, 41]. VUIs offer a “natural” interface through which users interact with the device through their voice. Consumers are interacting with these devices, including smart speakers and robots, in a wide range of places including their homes, museums, airports, and malls [10, 26, 55, 75], often in small groups of 2-6 people. While engaging with these devices, reciprocity (the “give-and-take” in relationships) can promote positivity, emotional engagement, rapport, and higher attraction [5, 17, 81]. Understanding how users respond to various types of VUIs can inform how people will engage with these devices and how different modalities support these technology-mediated, oftentimes social, interactions.