Power of ‘Nekomimi’: animal-like anthropomorphic agents in environmental education

Abstract

The use of virtual teachers (VTs) in environmental education is an important but little-studied issue. The advantage of VTs over robot teachers is that they have more freedom in designing their appearance and can change it immediately. Therefore, this paper hypothesizes that ‘VTs with animal ears are better suited to teach environmental issues related to animals’. To verify this hypothesis, I conducted a two-factor and two-level experiment. The first factor was the appearance of the VT, which I defined as cat ears level and human level. The second factor was the lesson theme, I defined the invasive species problem level and the acid rain problem level. The measure of lesson effectiveness was a questionnaire answered by the participants. Results showed that only when the lesson topic was ‘Invasive Alien Species Issue’, participants indicated that VTs with cat ears were more knowledgeable and more trustworthy on the lesson topic than VTs without cat ears. When asked if VTs were interested in the lesson theme, the results were more clear: VTs with nekomimi felt that they were more interested in the theme than VTs without nekomimi only if the theme was an invasive species issue.

Keywords:

• Human-agent interaction
• virtual agent
• pedagogical agent
• anthropomorphication
• Nekomimi

Reviewing Editor:

• Shuyan Wang, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA

Subjects:

• Human Computer Interaction
• Educational Technology
• Media Education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

TM and created the model and experimental design. TM conducted the experiments and analysis. TM drafted the manuscript. All authors participated in the review and revision of the manuscript and have approved the final manuscript for publication.

Notes

1 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1364390/Animaze_by_FaceRig/?l=japanese

2 https://www.ah-soft.com/voiceroid/kiritan/

3 https://crowdsourcing.yahoo.co.jp/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tetsuya Matsuia

Tetsuya Matsui is assistant professor in Osaka Instutite of Technology. TM earned a doctorate degree in Kobe University, and worked in National Institute of Informatics and Seikei University. TM is interested in trust in human-agent interaction, social factors in virtual agents and design method of virtual agents. TM’s main interest is the effect of the combination of the virtual agent's external and internal appearance on the user. TM particularly interested in research on the design of teacher agents (virtual teachers, VTs) and conducting experimental studies. TM is also interested in developing agents implementing ‘natural born intelligence’ that can interact with others without relying on models of robust others. TM aims to realize a society in which people and artifacts work together with respect for their differences.