Abstract
Embodied agents have the potential to become a highly natural human-computer interaction device – they are already is use as tutors, presenters and assistants. However, it remains an open question whether adding an agent to an application has a measurable impact, positive or negative, in terms of motivation and learning performance. Prior studies are very diverse with respect to design, statistical power and outcome; and repeated interactions are rarely considered. We present a controlled user study of a vocabulary trainer application that evaluates the effect on motivation and learning performance. Subjects interacted either with a no-agent and with-agent version in a between-subjects design in repeated sessions. As opposed to prior work (e.g. Persona Effect), we found neither positive nor negative effects on motivation and learning performance, i.e. a Persona Zero-Effect. This means that adding an agent does not benefit the performance but also, does not distract.
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Miksatko, J., Kipp, K.H., Kipp, M. (2010). The Persona Zero-Effect: Evaluating Virtual Character Benefits on a Learning Task with Repeated Interactions. In: Allbeck, J., Badler, N., Bickmore, T., Pelachaud, C., Safonova, A. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6356. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15892-6_51
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