TY - GEN
T1 - Investigating gender-stereotyped interactions with virtual agents in public spaces
AU - Muller, Ana
AU - Penkert, Lydia
AU - Schneider, Sebastian
AU - Richert, Anja
N1 - Funding Information:
1Ana Müller, Lydia Penkert, Sebastian Schneider and Anja Richert are with the Cologne Cobots Lab, TH Köln -University of Applied Sciences, 50679 Cologne, Germany {ana.mueller,anja.richert}@th-koeln.de The authors acknowledge the financial support by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany in the framework FH-Kooperativ 2-2019 (project number 13FH504KX9). We thank DB Systel GmbH, Hamburger Hochbahn AG and all collaborators for their assistance and contributions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Current research on the impact of gender appearance in virtual agents and social robots highlights the danger of transmitting and solidifying existing gender stereotypes. To investigate gender-stereotyped interaction at public spaces in dependency of virtual agents gender, we varied the gender of a virtual agent at a metro station. We used an ethnographic study approach, combining a two-day behavior observation with semi-structured interviews with descriptive and qualitative system log analysis of four weeks. Our results show that topics of conversation differ in dependency of the virtual agents gender: the male virtual agent was asked about topics such as brothels, drugs and alcohol and insulted frequently, while the female one was asked for relationship status or about flirting.
AB - Current research on the impact of gender appearance in virtual agents and social robots highlights the danger of transmitting and solidifying existing gender stereotypes. To investigate gender-stereotyped interaction at public spaces in dependency of virtual agents gender, we varied the gender of a virtual agent at a metro station. We used an ethnographic study approach, combining a two-day behavior observation with semi-structured interviews with descriptive and qualitative system log analysis of four weeks. Our results show that topics of conversation differ in dependency of the virtual agents gender: the male virtual agent was asked about topics such as brothels, drugs and alcohol and insulted frequently, while the female one was asked for relationship status or about flirting.
KW - feminist HCI
KW - gender stereotyping
KW - public spaces
KW - virtual agent
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140709635&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/RO-MAN53752.2022.9900529
DO - 10.1109/RO-MAN53752.2022.9900529
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85140709635
T3 - RO-MAN 2022 - 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication: Social, Asocial, and Antisocial Robots
SP - 1592
EP - 1597
BT - RO-MAN 2022 - 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2022
Y2 - 29 August 2022 through 2 September 2022
ER -