research-article

Typefaces and the Perception of Humanness in Natural Language Chatbots

Authors:

Heloisa Candello,

Claudio Pinhanez,

Flavio FigueiredoAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 3476 - 3487

https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025919

Published: 02 May 2017 Publication History

Abstract

How much do visual aspects influence the perception of users about whether they are conversing with a human being or a machine in a mobile-chat environment? This paper describes a study on the influence of typefaces using a blind Turing test-inspired approach. The study consisted of two user experiments. First, three different typefaces (OCR, Georgia, Helvetica) and three neutral dialogues between a human and a financial adviser were shown to participants. The second experiment applied the same study design but OCR font was substituted by Bradley font. For each of our two independent experiments, participants were shown three dialogue transcriptions and three typefaces counterbalanced. For each dialogue typeface pair, participants had to classify adviser conversations as human or chatbot-like. The results showed that machine-like typefaces biased users towards perceiving the adviser as machines but, unexpectedly, handwritten-like typefaces had not the opposite effect. Those effects were, however, influenced by the familiarity of the user to artificial intelligence and other participants' characteristics.

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Index Terms

Typefaces and the Perception of Humanness in Natural Language Chatbots
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2017

7138 pages

ISBN:9781450346559

DOI:10.1145/3025453

General Chairs:
Gloria Mark
University of California Irvine
,
Susan Fussell
Cornell University
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Program Chairs:
Cliff Lampe
University of Michigan
,
m.c. schraefel
University of Southampton
,
Juan Pablo Hourcade
University of Iowa
,
Caroline Appert
Université Paris-Sud
,
Daniel Wigdor
University of Toronto

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https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-5668-5.ch002
Wayne Litvin SPei-Sze Tan K(2024)ChatGPT: It’s Here, Whether We Want It or Not!Cornell Hospitality Quarterly10.1177/1938965524122961565:3(393-402)Online publication date: 15-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/19389655241229615
Bluvstein SZhao XBarasch ASchroeder J(2024)Imperfectly Human: The Humanizing Potential of (Corrected) Errors in Text-Based CommunicationJournal of the Association for Consumer Research10.1086/7284129:3(332-343)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1086/728412
Yu RFeng JWang KYang LFeng J(2024)Who are you talking to? How chatbot identity disclosure affects service satisfactionJournal of Travel & Tourism Marketing10.1080/10548408.2024.236975541:8(1090-1106)Online publication date: 15-Jul-2024
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