2015 Volume 20 Issue 1 Pages 15-24
Previous research, for instance, in the museum context has demonstrated that the interactive information media used is crucial. In this paper, we argue that humanlike appearance and humanlike conversational behaviors increase the effectiveness of information transfer. We developed the autonomous system of the female-type android robot to test this assumption in a field experiment situated in a shopping mall context. Concretely, in this scenario, the android not only provided objective information such as a price or where to buy goods, but also conveyed subjective information about her preferred shops in the mall. Overall, descriptive findings showed that the customers were eager to accept the android as a humanlike interaction partner: To illustrate, participants expressed interest in engaging with it and generally appreciated the conversation with this type of information media. To confirm the positive impact of the android on customer behaviors, we even observed that the clothes the android was wearing during the field trials happened to sell out while the experiment was running. The relevance of using androids as effective media in public spaces are discussed.
