Observing conversational expressiveness of elderly users interacting with a robot and screen agent

While expressiveness in human communication is a natural and widely observed phenomenon, in studies of humans interacting with robots and screen agents it is relatively unexplored. If it occurs however, this could mean that the artificial personality is accepted as a conversation partner by the user. An experiment with a robot and a screen agent in an eldercare institution both in a more and less expressive condition shows that it occurs: participants showed indeed more expressiveness with a more expressive robot or agent. The effect seemed to be stronger for the robot. Although the robot differed in more ways from the agent, this could be an indication of agent embodiment being a moderating factor.