Cultural adaptation of “kawaii” in short mobile video applications: How the perception of “kawaii” is shaped by the cultural background of the viewer and the gender of the performer

Urakami, Jacqueline; Qie, Nan; Kang, Xinyue; Rau, Pei‐Luen Patrick

doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100109

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We did not have the bandwidth or resources to explore cross-cultural perceptions. However, previous work [5,6,18,20,49] indicates that kawaii vocalics may vary across cultural and language groups, which deserves study.…”

Section: Probing Cross-cultural Perceptions Of Kawaii Voices: Are Kaw...mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Kawaii is a multifaceted concept, with a variety of "flavours" available, including "kimo" or scary kawaii, "shy" and "confident" kawaii [49], Harajuku "street fashion" kawaii [36], and more. Future work can uncover the "flavours" of kawaii vocalics, especially ones that map onto certain roles or contexts of use for VAs, i.e., personas for kawaii vocalics.…”

Section: Mapping Out Kawaii Voice Personasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shiokawa provocatively argues that kawaii has been molded and reconstituted over time, especially as women gained more power and influence in mass media [47]. Still others have approached kawaii as gender-neutral [29,49]. Still, kawaii has been painted feminine in broad strokes.…”

Section: Operationalizing Kawaii As a Sociocultural Phenomenonmentioning

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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Section: Probing Cross-cultural Perceptions Of Kawaii Voices: Are Kaw...mentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Mapping Out Kawaii Voice Personasmentioning

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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“…Spanish has the second highest number of native speakers in the world (471 million), following Mandarin Chinese (921 million) (Eberhard et al, 2021). In Chinese, the word “kě-’ài ()” is used similarly to the Japanese word “kawaii” (“”) (Marcus et al, 2017; Urakami et al, 2021). In contrast, there is no straightforward equivalent adjective for “kawaii” or “cute” in Spanish.…”

Section: Cross-linguistic Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

English and Spanish Adjectives That Describe the Japanese Concept of Kawaii

et al. 2023

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The word “kawaii” is ubiquitous in contemporary Japan and has spread to the rest of the world with the dissemination of Japanese pop culture. Although the word is conventionally translated in English as “cute,” its meaning is more nuanced than “cute,” and it is used for a wider variety of objects. The primary aim of this study was to determine if Spanish has an equivalent to the word “kawaii”; additionally, similarities and differences across Japanese, English, and Spanish were explored. An internet survey was conducted in which respondents from Japan ( n = 486), the United States ( n = 365), and Argentina ( n = 303) were presented with various photographic images that were often described as “kawaii” in Japanese and asked to write three adjectives to describe the images. They were also instructed to rate their affective states when looking at each image in the valence and arousal dimensions. The results showed that babyish objects (e.g., human, animal, and toy) were most frequently defined as “kawaii” in Japanese, “cute” in English, and “tierno” in Spanish. The average frequency at which these words were used as primary adjectives was higher for “kawaii” (57.5%) than for “cute” (26.8%) or “tierno” (22.4%). All of these images were associated with positive and moderately-aroused affective states similarly across all three countries. The present study demonstrates that the adjectives “kawaii,” “cute,” and “tierno” can be used almost equivalently for describing babies and pets, but that the Japanese adjective “kawaii” encompasses wider categories than the other two words.

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“…The business that encompasses the consumerism of Japanese kawaii fashion integrates clothing, makeup, personal care products, plush toys, school supplies and stationery, among others (Ando et al, 2021;Rose, 2020;Urakami et al, 2021).…”

Section: Japanese Fashionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to Anime in Peru and Its Relationship with Demand for Goods and Services Related to Japanese Popular Culture

Fernández-Bedoya

Gago-Chávez

Meneses-La-Riva

et al. 2022

JESR

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Japanese animation, usually referred as anime, has gained popularity around the world. Anime fans, when exposed to this audio-visual product, generate unique feelings, which could develop into an attraction for other cultural products of Japanese origin. The objective of the study is to determinate significates relationships between exposure to anime and the raising demand for goods and services related to Japanese popular (in the means of desire to consume manga, to eat Japanese cuisine, to wear Japanese fashion, to attend a Japanese rock or pop concert, to study the Japanese language, and to travel to Japan). The research was conducted in Arenales Plaza, a famous otaku congregation place located in Lima, Peru. Data was collected through a questionnaire developed by the authors, applied to a sample of 68 observations. The descriptive results identified high levels in each of the observed variables. As for the inferential results, Spearman's rho statistical test determined that there was a relationship between exposure to anime and the desire to consume manga (p. < 0.001; r = 0.75), desire to consume Japanese cuisine (p. < 0.001; r = 0.65), desire to consume Japanese fashion (p. < 0.001; r = 0.65), desire to consume Japanese pop and rock music (p. < 0.001; r = 0.25), desire to study Japanese (p. < 0.001; r = 0.25), and desire to travel to Japan (p. < 0.001; r = 0.53). Received: 14 June 2022 / Accepted: 20 August 2022 / Published: 2 September 2022

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Cultural adaptation of “kawaii” in short mobile video applications: How the perception of “kawaii” is shaped by the cultural background of the viewer and the gender of the performer

Cited by 6 publications

References 9 publications

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

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

English and Spanish Adjectives That Describe the Japanese Concept of Kawaii

Exposure to Anime in Peru and Its Relationship with Demand for Goods and Services Related to Japanese Popular Culture

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