The role of users’ preconceptions in talking to computers and robots

Communication with artificial interaction partners differs in many ways from communication among humans, and often so in the very first utterance. That is, in human-computer and human-robot interac-tion users address their artificial communication partner on the basis of preconceptions. The current paper addresses the nature of speakers’ preconceptions about robots and computers and the role these precon-ceptions play in human-computer and human-robot interactions. That is, I will show that a) two types of preconceptions as opposing poles of the same dimension of interpersonal relationship can be distinguished, b) these types can be readily identified on the basis of surface cues in the users ’ utterances, b) these preconceptions correlate with the users’ linguistic choices on all linguistic levels, and d) these preconceptions also influence the speakers ’ interactional behaviour, in particular, with respect to which their linguistic behaviour can be influenced, that is, in how far speakers align with the computer’s and robot’s linguistic output.