Rethinking the Human-Agent Relationship: Which Social Cues Do Interactive Agents Really Need to Have?

This chapter discusses the potential meaning of the term social in relation to human–agent interaction. Based on the sociological theory of object-centred sociality, four aspects of sociality, namely forms of grouping, attachment, reciprocity, and reflexivity are presented and transferred to the field of human–humanoid interaction studies. Six case studies with three different types of humanoid robots are presented, in which the participants had to answer a questionnaire involving several items on these four aspects. The case studies are followed by a section on lessons learned for human–agent interaction. In this section, a “social agent matrix” for categorizing human–agent interaction in terms of their main sociality aspect is introduced. A reflection on this matrix and the future (social) human–agent relationship closes this chapter.

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