`Alexa, are you prudish?' Laughter in German households with smart speakers

Abstract:

Laughter in human conversation plays a key role in managing dialogue. In human-human interaction, a joke may lead to laughter and playful exchanges that shape the conversation, with each participant contributing to the dynamic social exchange. In contrast, laughter in interactions with home assistant agents is mostly reactive. We have investigated interactions from four households in which Amazon’s Alexa was introduced, observing that laughter in these ‘in-the-wild’ situations tends to occur in more socially complex situations than those captured by the taxonomies of Mazzocconi et al. (2020); Perkins Booker et al. (2024).

Research areas:

• Dialogue
• Laughter
• DivCon

Year:

2025

Type of Publication:

In Proceedings

Book title:

International Society for Humor Studies Conference