Influence of Social Distance Expressed by Driving Support Agent’s Utterance on Psychological Acceptability

Abstract

In this study, we discuss the psychological acceptability of an utterance strategy used by the Driving Support Agent (DSA). Previous literature regarding DSA suggests that the adoption of a small robot as a form will increase acceptability. However, the agent’s utterance has been reported as a problem faced by the user. Therefore, in this study, we designed the agent’s utterance using politeness strategy as described by Brown and Levinson’s famous sociolinguistics and pragmatics theory and analyzed its acceptability through a participant-based experiment. In this experiment, we used positive and negative politeness strategies (PPS and NPS, respectively). In general, PPS is utilized to reflect the desire to be liked/recognized by others, whereas NPS is utilized to reflect the need for not wanting to be disturbed by others. Based on our results, PPS was rated high compared to NPS (n = 197). Therefore, many participants highly evaluated PPS. However, there was a group of participants who appreciated NPS. There were also participants who evaluated the two strategies equally. The number of participants in these three groups was observed at 4:1:1. This result contributes as an index on the utterance design of the DSA.

Should a Driving Support Agent Provide Explicit Instructions to the User? Video-based Study Focused on Politeness Strategies

“…Miyamoto et al [5,6] and Lee et al [7] partially verified the effects of politeness strategies in DSA. In the study by Miyamoto et al [5,6], the effects of PPS and NPS were compared, and PPS was evaluated significantly higher than NPS. In contrast, it was shown that there are some users who prefer NPS to PPS [5].…”

“…In the study by Miyamoto et al [5,6], the effects of PPS and NPS were compared, and PPS was evaluated significantly higher than NPS. In contrast, it was shown that there are some users who prefer NPS to PPS [5]. The study of Lee et al [7] showed the effectiveness of DSA that used NPS.…”

“…This design increases acceptability by not giving explicit instructions to the user [2]. In addition, in the study of Miyamoto et al [5,6] of DSA utterance design for Japanese, politeness strategy and sentence-final style (Japanese honorific system) are treated as one variable. This is because the literature [8] suggests that sentencefinal styles in Japanese have similar effects to politeness strategies [5].…”

“…In addition, in the study of Miyamoto et al [5,6] of DSA utterance design for Japanese, politeness strategy and sentence-final style (Japanese honorific system) are treated as one variable. This is because the literature [8] suggests that sentencefinal styles in Japanese have similar effects to politeness strategies [5]. Specifically, formal sentence-final styles (e.g., in conversations with superiors) and NPS as well as informal sentence-final styles (e.g., in conversations among friends) and PPS have similar effects [8].…”

“…According to politeness theory [4], a knowledge in the research field of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, such implicit instruction corresponds to the "hinting" strategy (off-record), which avoids directly communicating intentions to the other party. Nevertheless, previous studies [5,6] that evaluated the acceptability of the politeness theory utterance strategies used by DSAs have focused only on strategies that convey explicit intentions, and the difference between the effects of these and off-record strategies was not clear. In other words, it is unclear whether the DSA should explicitly instruct the user on driving operations.…”