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Towards Understanding the Effect of Voice on Human-Agent Negotiation

Published: 19 October 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Virtual agents are increasingly being used for communication training such as public speaking-, job interviews-, as well as negotiation training. In these use-cases the agent is generally taking on the role of interviewer and its behaviour is altered according to the nonverbal cues of its human interlocutor. However, understanding how the agent's non-verbal cues influence human behaviour, perception or interactions outcomes is equally important. This contributes to appropriate behaviour generation in agents, but also to our understanding of the intricate interplay of non-verbal behaviours on human perception and interaction outcomes.
This study focuses specifically on the perception of vocal dominance in human-agent negotiation. Earlier research showed that the perception of dominance influences decision making in the course of negotiations, as do concessions tactics. However, the effect of voice as well as the effect of the negotiator type in this regard have been so far under-explored. To close this gap, an online experiment was conducted, in which a total number of 121 participants negotiated with conversational agents displaying either low or high vocal dominance, and an individualistic or neutral concession tactic. The results showed that when taking into account the self-reported type of negotiator, significant differences caused by vocal dominance were evident in regard to the number of negotiation rounds and perceived fairness. The number of rounds was significantly higher for the competitive participant type negotiating with the low vocal dominance agent, and the perceived fairness was significantly lower with the collaborative participant type negotiating with the high vocal dominance agent.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Effect of Agent Explanations Using Warm and Cold Language on User Adoption of Recommendations for Bandit ProblemsExplainable and Transparent AI and Multi-Agent Systems10.1007/978-3-031-70074-3_1(3-20)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2024
  • (2023)Preference learning from emotional expressions contributes integrative solutions between human-AI negotiation2023 11th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW)10.1109/ACIIW59127.2023.10388197(1-7)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2023
  • (2021)Effect of politeness strategies in dialogue on negotiation outcomesProceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3472306.3478336(195-202)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021

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cover image ACM Conferences
IVA '20: Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
October 2020
394 pages
ISBN:9781450375863
DOI:10.1145/3383652
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 19 October 2020

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Author Tags

  1. Concession Tactic
  2. Negotiation
  3. Virtual Agents
  4. Vocal Dominance

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IVA '20
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IVA '20: ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
October 20 - 22, 2020
Scotland, Virtual Event, UK

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Effect of Agent Explanations Using Warm and Cold Language on User Adoption of Recommendations for Bandit ProblemsExplainable and Transparent AI and Multi-Agent Systems10.1007/978-3-031-70074-3_1(3-20)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2024
  • (2023)Preference learning from emotional expressions contributes integrative solutions between human-AI negotiation2023 11th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW)10.1109/ACIIW59127.2023.10388197(1-7)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2023
  • (2021)Effect of politeness strategies in dialogue on negotiation outcomesProceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3472306.3478336(195-202)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021

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