Effects of Chatbots with Anthropomorphic Visual and Auditory Cues on Users’ Affective Preference: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials
Jiahao Chen, Fu Guo, Zeyu Zhang, Xiaohui Tian, Jaap Ham · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · 2025
Anthropomorphic visual and auditory cues are two crucial design elements influencing users’ affective preference for chatbots. However, most earlier studies only focused on one of them and it is still unknown how anthropomorphic visual appearance and voice influence users’ affective preference and neural responses. In the current research, participants’ subjective preference evaluation and objective ERP responses were measured when being presented with chatbots with different visual and auditory cues. (human-like voice and mechanical voice). Subjective results indicated that consistent cues of anthropomorphic visual appearances and voices jointly evoked users’ higher affective preference for chatbots. Notably, auditory cues play a dominant role among audiovisual cues that influence users’ affective preference for chatbots. ERP results showed that low anthropomorphic visual appearances and mechanical voices jointly elicited larger P2 and P3. Additionally, chatbots with low anthropomorphic visual appearances and chatbots with human-like voices elicited larger LPP. These findings hold theoretic implications for understanding the impact of chatbots’ visual appearance and voice on users’ affective preference and provide practical insights for the design of human-chatbot interactions.