Abstract
Feedback can serve as an intervention aimed at reducing household energy consumption. The present study focused on the effects of agent embodiment on behavioral change through feedback. The effects of agent embodiment were studied for female vs. male users. Also factual feedback was compared to evaluative feedback. An experiment was conducted in which 76 participants used a virtual washing machine to clean laundry. They received interactive feedback about their energy consumption, from an embodied agent or from a computer. This feedback indicated the consumption level (factual feedback) or good or bad performance (evaluative feedback). The results showed that evaluative feedback, especially when it was negative, was more effective than factual feedback in reducing energy consumption, independent of the source of the feedback. Overall, for men it did not matter whether the feedback was given by a computer or by an embodied agent, but for women it did: women who interacted with the embodied agent used less energy than women who interacted with the computer.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, April 26-29, 2009, Claremont, California |
| Editors | S. Chatterjee, P. Dev |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. |
| Pages | article no. 46- |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-60558-376-1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
| Event | 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2009) - Claremont, United States Duration: 26 Apr 2009 → 29 Apr 2009 Conference number: 4 |
Conference
| Conference | 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2009) |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | PERSUASIVE 2009 |
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Claremont |
| Period | 26/04/09 → 29/04/09 |
