Peter Heubl, 2021 – Evaluation of an interactive assertiveness training with social agents for preventing sexual harassment and bullying at work
Fajar Setyo Nugroho, 2020 – Mixed Reality System for Remote Technical Vehicle Presentations
Andreas Thieser, 2020 – VR Presentation Coach: A Virtual Reality Public Speaking Training Framework
Sandra W. Bell, 2020 – Making friends 3.0? Determinants for building relationships with virtual characters
Naomi Sauerwein, 2020 – Stress Management Training using Biofeedback guided by Social Agents
Virtual agents play an important role when we interact with machines. They are in the role of assistants or companions with less or more human-like appearance. Such agents influence our behavior. With an increasing and broader distribution, their influence might become stronger, and at some point, they might even adopt roles with a degree of authority. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the obedience of human users towards a) an embodied virtual agent in the role of an instructors and b) a human in the role of an instructor. Under a cover-story of a creativity test, participants should fulfill stressful and shameful tasks. Our results indicate that the embodied virtual agent has the same authority as the human instructor. The agent is also able to elicit the same level of the negative feelings stress and shame.
The paper resulting from this thesis received an honorable mention at IUI 2021:
Schneeberger, T., Sauerwein, N., Anglet, M. S., & Gebhard, P. (2021, April). Stress Management Training using Biofeedback guided by Social Agents. In 26th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (pp. 564-574).
Sofie Ehrhardt, 2019 – Would you Follow my Instructions if I was not Human? Examining Obedience towards Virtual Agents
Virtual agents play an important role when we interact with machines. They are in the role of assistants or companions with less or more human-like appearance. Such agents influence our behavior. With an increasing and broader distribution, their influence might become stronger, and at some point, they might even adopt roles with a degree of authority. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the obedience of human users towards a) an embodied virtual agent in the role of an instructors and b) a human in the role of an instructor. Under a cover-story of a creativity test, participants should fulfill stressful and shameful tasks. Our results indicate that the embodied virtual agent has the same authority as the human instructor. The agent is also able to elicit the same level of the negative feelings stress and shame.
Schneeberger, T., Ehrhardt, S., Anglet, M. S., & Gebhard, P. (2019, September). Would you follow my instructions if I was not human? Examining obedience towards virtual agents. In 2019 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) (pp. 1-7). IEEE.
Michaela Neumayr, 2018 – Influence of mimicry on virtual job interviews
Several studies have shown that mimicry has an impact on the impression of a counterpart and the interaction with this counterpart. These effects have been found in real word interactions as well as virtual interactions. Still missing is the consideration of influences of mimicry in the selection of employees, especially in a job interview setting.
In an experiment we investigated how participants of a job interview with a virtual interviewer reacted to the imitation of their smile, nodding and head movements. In one condition the virtual interviewer imitated those social signals, in the other condition he did not.
The results showed no significant difference between the groups regarding perceived friendliness, social competence, empathy, social presence, interaction with the virtual interviewer and the mimicry shown by applicants. Also there was no difference between the groups regarding the mediating effects of these variables for organizational attractiveness and intentions to pursue the application process.
Interestingly, exploratory analysis showed a gender difference in the mimicry condition. Male imitated applicants rated the virtual interviewer worse than female imitated applicants concerning the following variables: friendliness, social competence, social presence and interaction. These results suggest that gender could have an influence on the perception of interviewer and the interview. Social signals could be interpreted in different ways, depending on applicants and interviewers gender.
Companies should consider these influences and especially be aware of the various consequences using new technologies in the selection process.
Alvaro Cepero, 2017
Jannis Göhlich, 2017
Zhenqiang Guo, 2017
Markus Langer, 2014
Expanding research on employment interview training, this study introduces virtual employment interview (VI) training with focus on nonverbal behavior. In VI training, participants took part in a simulated interview with a virtual character. Simultaneously, the computer analyzed participants’ nonverbal behavior and provided real-time feedback for it. The control group received parallel interview training. Following training, participants took part in mock interviews, where interviewers rated participants’ nonverbal behavior, and interview performance. Analyses revealed (a) that participants of VI training showed better interview performance, (b) that this effect was mediated by nonverbal behavior, and (c) that VI training has a positive influence on interview anxiety. These results have important practical implications for applicants, career counseling centers, and organizations.
Langer, M., König, C. J., Gebhard, P., & André, E. (2016). Dear computer, teach me manners: Testing virtual employment interview training. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 24(4), 312-323.