Social interactions and relationships with an intelligent virtual agent

The current study explores how humans interact with an intelligent virtual agent (IVA), Siri, on their mobile phones and how such experiences may impact their trust, social presence, and comfort level toward the IVA as a coworker, supervisor, and friend. A two (male- vs. female-voice of Siri) by two (functional vs. social task) by two (matched vs. ummatched with participants? gender) between-subjects experiment was performed with 163 participants. Higher levels of trust in cognitive dimensions were associated with functional tasks assisted by Siri, and one interaction between participants? gender and Siri?s gendered voice was observed in an affective dimension of trust, faith. Copresence dimension of social presence was associated with technical competence, understandability, faith, and personal attachment dimension of trust whereas psychological involvement was related with reliability and technical competence. Copresence, alongside faith and personal attachment, both affective dimensions of trust, seemed to facilitate comfortable feelings toward Siri imagined as various relational partners.

Automated summary

This study found that the way humans interact with the intelligent virtual agent Siri is related to trust, social presence, and comfort level. Different tasks and gendered voices can influence participants' perceptions of Siri in cognitive, affective, and trust dimensions.