A Cross-Cultural Study on the Perception of Sociability within Human-Computer Interaction

This study tries to use speech and dynamic emoticons as social cues to create a more sociable human-computer interaction. A cross-cultural study was conducted to investigate the influence of cultural backgrounds (Taiwan and America) on children's perceptions of sociability within human-computer interaction and explore how the management of social cues affects their engagement in e-learning environments. A 2x2 (Taiwan/America, speech/dynamic emoticon) quasi experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of the independent variables on children's perception of social presence and intrinsic motivation. Cultural differences in the perception of social presence are observed. American children reported higher perceived social presence than Taiwanese children did. No differences of effects of speech and dynamic emoticons on children's feelings of social presence and motivation are found. It suggests that children's social responses and learning motivations are triggered equally strongly by the two social cues. These findings suggest that designers of educational technology could use speech or dynamic emoticons to build more sociable interfaces that could boost children's motivation in learning.