Effects Of Interactivity, Contingency And Conversational Tone On User Responses To A Web-based Health Application.
Open Access
- Author:
- Bellur-thandaveshwara, Saraswathi
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 14, 2012
- Committee Members:
- S. Shyam Sundar, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Roxanne Louise Parrott, Committee Member
Fuyuan Shen, Committee Member
Michael Grant Schmierbach, Special Member - Keywords:
- Interactivity
Contingency
Preventive Health
Turn-taking cues - Abstract:
- Does the power of interactive media rest in their ability to afford natural and human like conversations? Do we believe that human-machine interactions are capable of successfully engaging us, if they can mimic the back-and-forth dialogue found in human-human interactions? The current study (N = 172), employing a between-subjects experiment, examines the effects of two dialogue-based variables—(i) message-interactivity, operationalized via contingency in message exchanges, and (ii) conversational tone, operationalized in terms of informal turn-taking cues—in how they influence participants’ responses to an online health information tool. Findings suggest that the effect of message-interactivity was positively mediated via perceived contingency and negatively mediated via perceived interactivity in influencing health-related attitudes and behavioral intentions. By enhancing perceptions of contingency in the system’s interaction with the user, message interactivity serves to increase user engagement with the health content supplied by the system. However, users’ perception of interactivity (or the degree of feedback and two-way communication) was at odds with message interactivity, with study participants perceiving greater interactivity when there was lesser contingency in the system’s responses to user input. This, in turn, led to greater perceptions of message relevance, resulting in greater cognitive elaboration of health information. An informal conversational tone, in the form of verbal turn taking cues, lowered perceptions of relative susceptibility to health risks. Implications for designing future interactive health technologies and theoretical considerations surrounding the concepts of interactivity, contingency and turn-taking cues are discussed.