From Instructor to Collaborator: What a 90-Participant Study Reveals about Human-Agent Collaboration in a Mobile Serious Game 文章

arXiv:2605.27384v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This position paper reflects empirical data collected during my PhD from a large-scale within-subjects study (N = 90). The study compared a highly human-like, spoken embodied conversational agent (ECA) against a low human-like text base agent (no embodiment, text bubble only) within a mobile, Unity-developed game about pre-decimal UK currency. The game included two agents with different roles-an Instructor (Alex) and a Shopkeeper/Collaborator. Users interacted using voice and mouse input. The quantitative data I collected included a usability questionnaire (CCIR MINERVA) and the Agent Persona Instrument. Data was analyzed using paired t-test, repeated measures ANOVA and multiple linear regression to identify correlations between the persona and usability. The results showed a statistically significant preference for the version of highly human-like agents, with a large effect size.