Cultural Communication Idiosyncrasies in Human-Computer Interaction
Juliana Miehle1 , Koichiro Yoshino3 , Louisa Pragst1 ,Stefan Ultes2 , Satoshi Nakamura3 , Wolfgang Minker1
1
Institute of Communications Engineering, Ulm University, Germany
2
Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, UK
3
Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Abstract

Japanese containing cultural relevant system reactions. In every dialogue turn, the study participants had to indicate their preference concerning
the system output. With the findings of the study,
we demonstrate whether there are different preferences in communication style in HCI and which
concepts of HHI may be applied.
The structure of the remaining paper is as follows: In Section 2, related work is presented. Subsequently, in Section 3, we present the cultural idiosyncrasies which we consider relevant for spoken dialogue systems. In Section 4, we present
cultural differences between Germany and Japansupposed by the cultural models for HHI. The concept and the results of our study are presented in
Section 5 before concluding in Section 6.

In this work, we investigate whether thecultural idiosyncrasies found in humanhuman interaction may be transferred tohuman-computer interaction. With theaim of designing a culture-sensitive dialogue system, we designed a user study
creating a dialogue in a domain that has
the potential capacity to reveal cultural differences. The dialogue contains different
options for the system output according tocultural differences. We conducted a survey among Germans and Japanese to investigate whether the supposed differences
may be applied in human-computer interaction. Our results show that there areindeed differences, but not all results are
consistent with the cultural models.

1

2

Significant Related Work

Brejcha (2015) has described patterns of language
and culture in HCI and has shown why these patterns matter and how to exploit them to design a
better user interface. Furthermore, Traum (2009)has outlined how cultural aspects may be includedin the design of a visual human-like body and theintelligent cognition driving action of the body of avirtual human. Therefore, different cultural models have been examined and the author points out
steps for a fuller model of culture. Georgila andTraum (2011) have presented how culture-specificdialogue policies of virtual humans for negotiationand in particular for argumentation and persuasion
may be built. A corpus of non-culture specificdialogues is used to build simulated users which
are then employed to learn negotiation dialogue
policies using Reinforcement Learning. However,
only negotiation specific aspects are taken into account while we aim to create an overall culturesensitive dialogue system which takes into account cultural idiosyncrasies in every decision andadapts not only what is said, but also how it is said
to the user’s cultural background.

Introduction

Nowadays, intelligent agents are omnipresent.
Furthermore, we live in a globally mobile society in which people of widely different cultural
backgrounds live and work together. The numberof people who leave their ancestral cultural environment and move to countries with different culture and language is increasing. This spurs theneed for culturally sensitive conversation agents.
Hence, our aim is to design a culture-aware dialogue system which allows a communication inaccordance with the user’s cultural idiosyncrasies.
By adapting the system’s behaviour to the user’s
cultural background, the conversation agent may
appear more familiar and trustworthy.
However, it is unclear whether cultural idiosyncrasies found in human-human interaction (HHI)
may be transferred to human-computer interaction (HCI) as it has been shown that there exist
clear differences in HHI and HCI (Doran et al.,2003). To investigate this, we designed and conducted a user study with a dialogue in German and74

Proceedings of the SIGDIAL 2016 Conference, pages 74–79,
Los Angeles, USA, 13-15 September 2016. c 2016 Association for Computational Linguistics

3

Integrating cultural idiosyncrasies

helps to provide necessary information to the user
in an appropriate way. Additionally, some cultures have low-context communication whereas
other cultures have high-context communication.
In low-context communication, there is a low useof non-verbal communication. Therefore, the people need background information and expect messages to be detailed. In contrast, in high-context
communication, there is a high use of non-verbal
communication and the people do not require, nor
do they expect much in-depth background information. Taking these facts into account means thatthe DM has to make a very detailed decision about
how to present the information to the user.

In a culturally aware intelligent conversation
agent, the Dialogue Management (DM) sitting at
the core of a dialogue system (Minker et al., 2009)
has to be aware of cultural interaction idiosyncrasies to generate culturally appropriate output.
Hence, the DM is not only responsible for what issaid next, but also for how it is said. This is whatmakes the difference to generic DM where the twomain tasks are to track the dialogue state and to select the next system action, i.e., what is uttered by
the system (Ultes and Minker, 2014).
According to various cultural models (Hofstede,2009; Elliott et al., 2016; Kaplan, 1966; Lewis,
2010; Qingxue, 2003), different cultures preferdifferent communication styles. There are four dimensions which we consider relevant for DM:

4

Cultural differences

According to the aforementioned cultural models,various cultural differences are expected to exist between Germany and Japan. However, concerning Animation/Emotion, both Germans andJapanese are not expected to be emotionally expressive. According to (Elliott et al., 2016),
both cultures avoid intensely emotional interactions as they may lead to a loss of self-control.
Lewis (2010) affirms the fact that both Germans
and Japanese don’t like losing their face. Hence,emotionally expressive communication is not a
preferred mode and the people try to preserve afriendly appearance.
Regarding Directness/Indirectness, Elliot etal. (2016) and Lewis (2010) indeed supposes differences between Germany and Japan in their cultural model. While Germans tend to speak very
direct about certain things, Japanese prefer an implicit and indirect communication.
According to (Hofstede, 2009; Elliott et al.,2016; Lewis, 2010; Qingxue, 2003), the Identity Orientation is also expected to be different
for Germans and Japanese. Germans are supposed to be rather individualistically oriented andthe personal goals take priority over the allegianceto groups or group goals. In contrast, Japaneseare more collectivistically oriented and often maketheir decisions in relation to obligations to theirfamily or other groups. They tend to be peopleoriented and the self is often subordinated in theinterests of harmony.
In terms of Thought Patterns and Rhetorical
Style, the cultural models also suppose various differences between Germans and Japanese. First ofall, Qingxue (2003) states that Germans have a

Animation/Emotion The display of emotions
and the apparent involvement in a topic can be perceived very differently across cultures. While insome cultures the people are likely to express theiremotions, in other cultures this is quite unusual.
Directness/Indirectness Information provided
for the user has to be presented suitable so thatthe user is more likely to accept it. It has to be decided whether the intent is directly expressed (e.g.
”Drink more water.”) or if an indirect communication style is chosen (e.g. ”Drinking more water
may help with headaches.”) whereby the listenerhas to deduce the intent from the context.
Identity
Orientation Internalised
selfperception and certain values influence thedecisions of humans which depend on their culture. Hence, arguments addressing these values
may be constructed based on the user’s culture.
In some cultures, the people are individualistically oriented which means that the peoples’
personal goals take priority over their allegianceto groups or group goals and decisions are madeindividualistically. In other cultures, the people
are collectivistically oriented which means that
there is a greater emphasis on the views, needs,
and goals for the group rather than oneself anddecisions are often made in relation to obligations
to the group (e.g. family).
Thought Patterns and Rhetorical Style Different cultures use different argumentation styles(e.g. linear, parallel, circular and digressive). Ina discussion, the way arguments are presented75

you know why your father doesn’t drink enough?”
In contrast, the other four options include somebackground information why it is important foran adult to drink at least 1.5 litres of water perday. However, they differ in the argumentationstyle (parallel, linear, circular, digressive). The
user answers that he doesn’t know why their father doesn’t drink enough. Then, the agent has
different proposals how the water-intake may be
increased and there are four different options foreach proposal how it is presented to the user. The
first option contains background information andexpresses the content directly. The second option
is also direct but doesn’t give any background information. For the third and the fourth options anindirect communication style is chosen, whereby
one option contains background information andthe other doesn’t. An example for the different
options can be found in Table 1.

low-context communication while Japanese havea high-context communication. Therefore, Germans need background information and expect
messages to be detailed. In contrast, Japanese provide a lot of information through gestures, the useof space, and even silence. Most of the information is not explicitly transmitted in the verbal partof the message. Furthermore, according to (Elliott et al., 2016), the two cultures are expected touse different argumentation styles. For Germans,
directness in stating the point, purpose, or conclusion of a communication is the preferred style
while for Japanese this is not considered appropriate.

5

Concept and Evaluation

Based on the cultural differences in the dimensions Directness/Indirectness, Identity Orientation
and Thought Patterns and Rhetorical Style whichhave been presented in Section 4, we have designed a study to investigate if these differences
may be transferred to HCI. We formulated four hypotheses:

Option1
2
3

1. Germans choose options with direct communication more often than Japanese do.

4

2. Japanese choose options with motivation using group oriented arguments more often than
Germans do.

Formulation
Offer him tea instead of water. It tastes goodand is not as bad as soft drinks.
Offer him tea instead of water.
Offering tea instead of water can help. It tastes
good and is not as bad as soft drinks.
Offering tea instead of water can help.

Table 1: There are four different options for each
proposal how it is presented to the user: (1) direct, background information, (2) direct, no background information, (3) indirect, background information, (4) indirect, no background information.

3. Germans choose options with background information more often than Japanese do.
4. There are differences in the selection of argumentation styles.
Experimental Setting For the study, a dialogue
in the healthcare domain has been created. Thisdomain has the potential capacity to reveal suchdifferences as very sensitive subjects are covered.
For every system output, different variations havebeen formulated. Each of them has been adapted
according to the supposed cultural differences.
The participants assumed the role of a caregiver
who is caring for their father.
In the beginning of the dialogue, the agent
greets the user. The user also greets him andtells him that their father doesn’t drink enough.
The agent asks how much he usually drinks andthe answer is that he drinks only one cup of tea
after breakfast. Afterwards, different possibilities for the agent’s output are presented. The
first one doesn’t contain any background information: ”You’re right, that’s not enough. Do

In the end of the dialogue, the agent tries tomotivate the user. Two different kinds of motivation are formulated and presented by the agent.
The first one uses individualistically oriented arguments (”You’re really doing a great job! It’s impressive that you are able to handle all of this.”)whereas the second one uses group oriented arguments (”You’re really a big help for your family!”). Afterwards, the agent and the user say
goodbye and the dialogue ends.
The survey has been conducted on-line. A video
for each possible system output has been createdusing a Spoken Dialogue System with an animatedagent. For all recordings, the same system andthe same agent have been used. In each dialogue
turn, the participants had to watch videos representing the different variants of the system output
and decide which one they prefer. An example
76GermanGerman Mittelwert
Mittelwert
1.892307691.89230769
3.030769233.03076923
3.769230773.76923077
0.661538460.66153846
0.261538460.26153846
StandardabweichungStandardabweichung1.083059441.08305944
1.007193061.00719306
1.274232571.27423257
0.473186350.47318635
0.439472520.43947252

Japanese Mittelwert
Japanese Mittelwert
1.173913041.17391304
3.065217393.06521739
3.673913043.67391304
0.434782610.43478261
0.260869570.26086957
StandardabweichungStandardabweichung
0.9161438 0.9161438
0.869836910.86983691
1.064329711.06432971
0.495728450.49572845
0.439108910.43910891

directdirect4

4grouporiented
grouporiented

1

1

0.8

1.89230769
1.08305944
0.8

3.03076923
1.00719306

3.76923077
1.27423257

0.66153846
0.47318635

0.26153846
0.43947252

Japanese Mittelwert
1.17391304
0.6Standardabweichung0.6 0.9161438

3.06521739
0.86983691

3.67391304
1.06432971

0.43478261
0.49572845

0.26086957
0.43910891

German

3

3

2

2

1

1

Mittelwert
Standardabweichung

0.4

0.2

0.2

0

0

grouporiented

4
0

0

0.4
direct3(a) On average, Germans
2options with(dark) backgroundAlle5choosebackgroundAlle55direct communication
signif51
icantly 4(p < 40.001) more often than Japanese(light) do
0
3(MGer 3 = 1.89,
MJap =
1.17). 2
2
1

1

0

0

backgroundAlle510.8(b) On average,
Germans
0.6(dark)
chooseoptions0.4
withmotivation
using
0.2
group oriented
arguments
significantly0 (p < 0.05)
more often than Japanese(light) do (MGer = 0.66,
MJap = 0.43).

5
4

Figure 1: In each dialogue turn, the participants
had to watch different videos and decide which
one they prefer.

3
2
1
0

of this web page is shown in Figure 1. During
the survey, all descriptions have been provided in
English, German and Japanese. The videos havebeen recorded in English and subtitled in German
and Japanese. The translations have been made byGerman and Japanese native speakers who were
instructed to be aware of the linguistic features anddetails of the cultural differences to assure equivalence in the translations.

(c) On average, both Germans (dark) and Japanese (light)
prefer options with background information (MGer = 3.77,
MJap = 3.67). There is no significant difference.

Figure 2: Differences between Germans/Japanese.
tween direct and indirect options. Figure 2a shows
the mean of how often Germans (dark grey) andJapanese (light grey) selected the direct option.
The German mean is with 1.89 significantly higher
than the Japanese mean (p < 0.001 using the TTest) thus confirming our hypothesis.
Our second hypotheses says that Japanesechoose options with motivation using group oriented arguments more often than Germans do. The
survey includes one system action where the agent
motivates the user. Figure 2b shows the meanof how often Germans (dark grey) and Japanese(light grey) selected the motivation with group oriented arguments. It can be seen that the oppositeof the hypothesised effect occurred. On average,
the Germans chose the option with group oriented
arguments more often than the Japanese (p < 0.05
using the T-Test). An explanation for this result
might be that motivation may be dependent on the
topic of the dialogue. In our case, the dialogue isin the healthcare domain and caring for a family
member is inherently group oriented. Therefore,
it is most likely that motivating using group oriented arguments is more preferred for individualistically oriented people. However, if for someone
it is natural to care for a family member because
he is group oriented, then motivation using grouporiented arguments is not needed and individualis-

The survey Altogether, 65 Germans and 46
Japanese participated in the study. They have been
recruited using mailing lists and social networks.
The participants are aged between 15 and 62 years.
The average age of the Germans is 25.7 years
while the average age of the Japanese participantsis 27.9 years. The gender distribution of the participants is shown in Table 2. It can be seen that
65 % of the German and only 17 % of the Japaneseparticipants are female.

male / female

GermanJapanese

23 / 4238 / 8

Table 2: The participants’ gender distribution.
Evaluation results The evaluation of the survey
confirms our main hypothesis that Germans andJapanese have different preferences in communication style in HCI.
Our first hypotheses says that Germans choose
options with direct communication more often
than Japanese do. The study contains four questions where the participants have to choose be77

tically oriented arguments seem to be favoured.
Our third hypotheses says that Germans choose
options with background information more often
than Japanese do. The survey comprises five questions where the participants could select between
system outputs with and without background information. Figure 2c shows the mean of how often Germans (dark grey) and Japanese (light grey)
selected the option with background information.
On average, both Germans and Japanese preferred
the options with background information. Thissuggests that there is no non-verbal communication in this kind of HCI which is only based on
speech and does not include other modalities (theagent in the videos does not produce any output
but the speech). In this case, Japanese tend to missthe non-verbal communication which they use tohave in HHI and therefore need verbal backgroundinformation.
Our last hypotheses says that there are differences in the selection of argumentation styles. The
survey contains one system output where the participants have to choose between different argumentation styles. However, no significant difference could be found.
Due to the difference in the gender distribution,
it is important to investigate whether this has an effect on the overall results. As can be seen in Figure 3, only for Thought Patterns and Rhetorical
Style, a significant difference has been found: on
average, women chose options with backgroundinformation more often than men. However, as the
majority of both genders and both cultures chosethe options with background information (Mm >2.5, Mw > 2.5, MGer > 2.5, MJap > 2.5), thedifference between the genders is not supposed toeffect the result based on the culture.

6

male

male
Mittelwert
Mittelwert
1.524590161.52459016
2.8852459 2.8852459
3.524590163.52459016
0.524590160.52459016
0.245901640.24590164
StandardabweichungStandardabweichung1.125072781.12507278
1.041725561.04172556
1.288111561.28811156
0.499394960.49939496
0.430620510.43062051

femalefemaleMittelwert
1.68
3.24
3.98
0.620.28
0.28
Mittelwert
1.68
3.24
3.98
0.62
StandardabweichungStandardabweichung
1.008761621.00876162
0.788923320.78892332
1.009752441.00975244
0.485386440.48538644
0.448998890.44899889

directdirect

4

4

3

3

2

2

1

1

0

0

male

femalegrouporiented
grouporiented
Mittelwert
1.52459016
2.8852459 3.52459016
1Standardabweichung 11.12507278 1.04172556 1.28811156

0.52459016
0.49939496

0.24590164
0.43062051

Mittelwert
1.68
0.8
0.8
Standardabweichung 1.00876162

0.62
0.48538644

0.28
0.44899889

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.4

direct

4

1

1

0

0

grouporiented

0.2

0.2

0

0

0.8

2
(a) On average,
both men(dark) backgroundAlle5and backgroundAlle5
women (light)
15
prefer 5 options
with indirect communication
(Mm =
4 0
4
1.52, Mw = 1.68). There is3
3
no significant
difference.
2

3.98
1.00975244

1

3

2

3.24
0.78892332

backgroundAlle5

0.6(b) On average, both men
0.4(dark) andwomen (light)
0.2
prefer options
with motivation using grouporiented ar0
guments (Mm = 0.52,
Mw = 0.62). There is no
significant difference.

5
4
3
2
1
0

(c) On average, women (light) choose options with background information significantly (p < 0.05) more often
than men (dark) do (Mm = 3.52, Mw = 3.98).

Figure 3: Differences between men/women.
terns are not only influenced by the culture, butalso by the dialogue domain and the user emotion.
Moreover, it is shown that not all cultural idiosyncrasies that occur in HHI may be applied for HCI.
In this work, only one specific dialogue has
been considered. To get a more general view andexclude effects which may depend rather on thedomain than on the culture, in future work otherdialogues from different domains should be examined. Furthermore, we have to identify how the defined cultural idiosyncrasies may be implemented
in the Dialogue Management to design a culturesensitive spoken dialogue system.

Acknowledgements

Conclusion and Future Directions

This work is part of a project that has received
funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 645012. This research and development work was also supported by the MIC/SCOPE#152307004.

In this work, we presented a study investigating
whether cultural communication idiosyncrasies
found in HHI may also be observed during HCI ina Spoken Dialogue System context. Therefore, wehave created a dialogue with different options forthe system output according to the supposed differences. In an on-line survey on the user’s preference concerning the different options we haveshown that there are indeed differences between
Germany and Japan. However, not all results are
consistent with the existing cultural models for
HHI. This suggests that the communication pat-

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