Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

Talking Like One of Us: Effects of Using Regional Language in a Humanoid Social Robot

Thomas Sievers, Nele Russwinkel

TL;DR

This study investigates how using regional language varieties in a humanoid robot affects human perception of warmth, competence, and discomfort during interaction. Using Pepper and the Robotic Social Attributes Scale (RoSAS) in a within-subject design, the authors compare High German versus Low German dialog across 17 participants. They find a significant increase in perceived warmth for the Low German condition, with no meaningful change in perceived competence and a non-significant trend toward reduced discomfort. The work highlights cultural-linguistic identity as a factor in HRI and suggests future work to enable Low German comprehension and culturally appropriate gestures to further enhance acceptance and usability.

Abstract

Social robots are becoming more and more perceptible in public service settings. For engaging people in a natural environment a smooth social interaction as well as acceptance by the users are important issues for future successful Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The type of verbal communication has a special significance here. In this paper we investigate the effects of spoken language varieties of a non-standard/regional language compared to standard language. More precisely we compare a human dialog with a humanoid social robot Pepper where the robot on the one hand is answering in High German and on the other hand in Low German, a regional language that is understood and partly still spoken in the northern parts of Germany. The content of what the robot says remains the same in both variants. We are interested in the effects that these two different ways of robot talk have on human interlocutors who are more or less familiar with Low German in terms of perceived warmth, competence and possible discomfort in conversation against a background of cultural identity. To measure these factors we use the Robotic Social Attributes Scale (RoSAS) on 17 participants with an age ranging from 19 to 61. Our results show that significantly higher warmth is perceived in the Low German version of the conversation.

Talking Like One of Us: Effects of Using Regional Language in a Humanoid Social Robot

TL;DR

This study investigates how using regional language varieties in a humanoid robot affects human perception of warmth, competence, and discomfort during interaction. Using Pepper and the Robotic Social Attributes Scale (RoSAS) in a within-subject design, the authors compare High German versus Low German dialog across 17 participants. They find a significant increase in perceived warmth for the Low German condition, with no meaningful change in perceived competence and a non-significant trend toward reduced discomfort. The work highlights cultural-linguistic identity as a factor in HRI and suggests future work to enable Low German comprehension and culturally appropriate gestures to further enhance acceptance and usability.

Abstract

Social robots are becoming more and more perceptible in public service settings. For engaging people in a natural environment a smooth social interaction as well as acceptance by the users are important issues for future successful Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The type of verbal communication has a special significance here. In this paper we investigate the effects of spoken language varieties of a non-standard/regional language compared to standard language. More precisely we compare a human dialog with a humanoid social robot Pepper where the robot on the one hand is answering in High German and on the other hand in Low German, a regional language that is understood and partly still spoken in the northern parts of Germany. The content of what the robot says remains the same in both variants. We are interested in the effects that these two different ways of robot talk have on human interlocutors who are more or less familiar with Low German in terms of perceived warmth, competence and possible discomfort in conversation against a background of cultural identity. To measure these factors we use the Robotic Social Attributes Scale (RoSAS) on 17 participants with an age ranging from 19 to 61. Our results show that significantly higher warmth is perceived in the Low German version of the conversation.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 9 sections, 6 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. PRELIMINARIES
  3. RELATED WORK
  4. HUMANOID ROBOT PEPPER
  5. THE SURVEY
  6. Experimental Setup
  7. Results
  8. Discussion
  9. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Humanoid Robot Pepper
  • Figure 2: Dialog topic file
  • Figure 3: The results of the perceived warmth, competence and discomfort of the High German or Low German speaking Pepper Robot.
  • Figure 4: The results of the perceived warmth of the High German or Low German speaking Pepper Robot. Error bars show standard deviations.
  • Figure 5: The results of the perceived competence of the High German or Low German speaking Pepper Robot. Error bars show standard deviations.
  • ...and 1 more figures