Empathic agents to reduce user frustration: The effects of varying agent characteristics

There is now growing interest in the development of computer systems which respond to users' emotion and affect. We report three small-scale studies (with a total of 42 participants), which investigate the extent to which affective agents, using strategies derived from human–human interaction, can reduce user frustration within human–computer interaction. The results confirm the previous findings of Klein et al. [Klein, J., Moon, Y., Picard, R.W., 2002. This computer responds to user frustration: theory, design and results. Interacting with Computers 142, 119–140] that such interventions can be effective. We also obtained results that suggest that embodied agents can be more effective at reducing frustration than non-embodied agents, and that female embodied agents may be more effective than male embodied agents. These results are discussed in light of the existing research literature.