The power of head tilts: gender and cultural differences of perceived human vs human-like robot smile in service

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the perceptual differences toward smiling behaviors with head inclinations displaying by the human-like robot staff and human staff in a service setting. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a 2 (staff: robot/human personal personnel) × 3 (head tilt: left/right/straight) full factorial design, while cross-examining participants’ cultural dimensions 2 (power distance: high/lower) × 2 (gender: male/female) during the service encounter. Findings Overall, it was found that male and female customers with different cultural background would perceive robot and human personnel with varying degrees of head tilt very differently, namely, regarding interpersonal warmth but not customer satisfaction. Originality/value Nonverbal cues serve as important elements in the interaction. This paper provides new directions on the design of anthropomorphic robot and gives insight to people’s perceptual differences. All in all, the present study is useful in facilitating human–robot interactions.

Is smiling during humor so obvious? A cross-cultural comparison of smiling behavior in humorous sequences in American English and French interactions

The present article is part of a larger cross-cultural research project on speaker-hearer smiling behavior in humorous and non-humorous conversations in American English and French. The American corpus consists of eight computer-mediated interactions between English native speakers, and the French one consists of four face-to-face interactions between French native speakers. The goal of the study is twofold: first, we analyze the link between smiling and humor, focusing on the degree of synchronicity of smiling and the intensity of smiling during humorous and non-humorous segments; second, we investigate the various targets mobilized in conversational humor. The results obtained comparing the two data-sets show a correlation between the presence of humor, an increased smiling intensity, and an increase in the synchronized smiling behaviors displayed by participants. However, the two corpora also differ in terms of the displayed smiling behaviors: French participants display more non-synchronic smiling when humor is absent and more synchronic smiling when humor is present. Regarding the various targets of humor (Speaker, Recipient, Other person, Situation, Speaker+Recipient), while their distribution is different – it is more evenly distributed in the French data – the way in which these are mobilized in order to become humorous is quite similar.

Increasing Social Smiles of Young Children with Disabilities

Play activities associated with eliciting smiles in typically developing infants were used with three young children with severe disabilities whose smiling behaviors were substantially delayed. Two children showed increased social smiles in response to auditory (high pitched human voice) or tactile (gently blowing air at child's face, hands or body) stimuli but none smiled in response to rattles or pop-up toys.