Evaluating Innovative Multimedia Customer Handling Systems

Smith, George Barrett (2000) Evaluating Innovative Multimedia Customer Handling Systems. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is tripartite communication between two human participants and a computer, where one human has access to the computer but the other does not. Its goal is to show that there is an intricate, triadic, relationship between the three. Previous investigations of such communication which have indicated that there are triadic relationships have concentrated on in depth study of the dialogues between the two human participants but have been informal and typically ethnomethodological. Formal or controlled experimental investigations have not taken account of the human-human dialogue, and as a consequence have not recognised the communications' triadic nature. This thesis redresses this dichotomy through extensive analysis of controlled experimental studies of simulated tripartite customer service situations. These analyses cover the three measures of perception, performance and process which have been used in the study of mediated human-human communication to build a complete model of the interactions. Particular attention was paid to the process of the human-human dialogues, using an adaptation of the Conversational Games Analysis (Kowtko, Isard and Doherty-Sneddon, 1992) coding scheme to gather in depth information about the ways in which participants used their utterances. The analyses of these measures provided empirical evidence that the informal studies were correct in proposing the relationship between the three participants in these communications were triadic. It was shown that not only broad differences in the computer's interaction style but also apparently small variations could have major impact on the human-human dialogue, and that the conditions of visibility between the three participants interacted strongly with these variations effects.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Adviser: Anne Anderson
• Keywords: Experimental psychology
• Date of Award: 2000
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2000-75958
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 19 Nov 2019 17:12
• Last Modified: 19 Nov 2019 17:12
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/75958