Comparing Perceptions of Static and Adaptive Proactive Speech Agents

A growing literature on speech interruptions describes how people interrupt one another with speech, but these behaviours have not yet been implemented in the design of artificial agents which interrupt. Perceptions of a prototype proactive speech agent which adapts its speech to both urgency and to the difficulty of the ongoing task it interrupts are compared against perceptions of a static proactive agent which does not. The study hypothesises that adaptive proactive speech modelled on human speech interruptions will lead to partner models which consider the proactive agent as a stronger conversational partner than a static agent, and that interruptions initiated by an adaptive agent will be judged as better timed and more appropriately asked. These hypotheses are all rejected however, as quantitative analysis reveals that participants view the adaptive agent as a poorer dialogue partner than the static agent and as less appropriate in the style it interrupts. Qualitative analysis sheds light on the source of this surprising finding, as participants see the adaptive agent as less socially appropriate and as less consistent in its interactions than the static agent.