Exploring Humor as a Repair Strategy During Communication Breakdowns with Voice Assistants

Voice assistants are becoming increasingly useful and support realistic conversations, yet communication breakdowns occur. We investigate the use of humor as a repair strategy in an experiment where the voice assistant makes a mistake and then utilizes one of four humorous personalities to repair the breakdown in the conversation. We conducted a study with 30 participants, each of whom took the Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ) to understand their predisposition to humor type, and then engaged in conversation with each of the four humorous personalities and one that was designed to give neutral repair responses (non-humorous). Aggressive personalities were rated as the funniest, yet there was no clear connection between the participant's humor style and their preferred voice assistant personality. While humorous responses were successful in repairing communication breakdowns, participants overall preferred non-humorous responses. This research provides insight into the role of humor in communication breakdown repair with voice assistants.