Can a Robot's Touches Express the Feeling of Kawaii toward an Object?

Okada, Yuka; Kimoto, Mitsuhiko; Iio, Takamasa; Shimohara, Katsunori; Nittono, Hiroshi; Shiomi, Masahiro

doi:10.1109/iros45743.2020.9340874

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Indeed, researchers working in human-computer interaction (HCI), humanrobot interaction (HRI), and human-agent interaction (HAI) have started exploring the "kawaii-ness" of interactive agents that feature a range of modalities and communicative capacities. So far, robots, virtual characters, and artificial agents have taken centre stage, with most focusing on visual appearance [4][5][6]9,30] but emerging work on movement and nonverbal behaviours [48], nonverbal sounds and melodies [9,51], touch [35], conduct [24,27], and voice [24]. This shift towards exploring nonvisual modes of expressing kawaii in interactive agents echoes an increase in HCI work on voice-based agents without a visible or perceivable body [43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kawaii is also said to carry gendered associations that intersect with age: that it is a girl's thing [16] and/or a socially constructed ideal of femininity as vulnerable, unthreatening, compliant, and immature [47]. Still, Nittono and colleagues [29][30][31][32][33]35] uncovered limitations in operationalizing kawaii as baby schema and gendered within the Japanese sociocultural context: objects without anthropomorphic characteristics, such as flowers, dessert, and accessories, were also perceived as kawaii. These findings were organized into a two-layer model of kawaii: social value and emotion [29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can Voice Assistants Sound Cute? Towards a Model of Kawaii Vocalics

Seaborn

Nam

Keckeis

et al. 2023

Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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The Japanese notion of "kawaii" or expressions of cuteness, vulnerability, and/or charm is a global cultural export. Work has explored kawaii-ness as a design feature and factor of user experience in the visual appearance, nonverbal behaviour, and sound of robots and virtual characters. In this initial work, we consider whether voices can be kawaii by exploring the vocal qualities of voice assistant speech, i.e., kawaii vocalics. Drawing from an age-inclusive model of kawaii, we ran a user perceptions study on the kawaii-ness of younger-and older-sounding Japanese computer voices. We found that kawaii-ness intersected with perceptions of gender and age, i.e., gender ambiguous and girlish, as well as VA features, i.e., fluency and artificiality. We propose an initial model of kawaii vocalics to be validated through the identification and study of vocal qualities, cognitive appraisals, behavioural responses, and affective reports.

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