N. Aykin (Ed.): Internationalization, Design, LNCS 5623, pp. 135–144, 2009. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 A Cross-Cultural Study on the Perception of Sociability within Human-Computer Interaction Fang-Wu Tung 1 , Keiichi Sato 2 , Yi-Shin Deng 3 , and Tsai-Yi Lin 4 1 Dept of Industrial Design, National United University, 1, Lienda, Miaoli, 36003 Taiwan 2 Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, 350 North La Salle St. 4th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA 3 Institute of Applied Arts, National Chiao Tung University 1001 University Road, Hsinchu, 30080 Taiwan 4 Department of Fashion Imaging, MingDao University 369, Wen Hwa Road, Pee-Tow , Chang-Hwa, 52345 Taiwan fwtung@gmail.com, sato@id.iit.edu, ydest@faculty.nctu.edu.tw, lintsaiyi99@yahoo.com.tw Abstract. This study tries to use speech and dynamic emoticons as social cues to create a more sociable human-computer interaction. A cross-cultural study was conducted to investigate the influence of cultural backgrounds (Taiwan and America) on children’s perceptions of sociability within human-computer inter- action and explore how the management of social cues affects their engagement in e-learning environments. A 2x2 (Taiwan/America, speech/dynamic emoti- con) quasi experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of the independ- ent variables on children’s perception of social presence and intrinsic motiva- tion. Cultural differences in the perception of social presence are observed. American children reported higher perceived social presence than Taiwanese children did. No differences of effects of speech and dynamic emoticons on children’s feelings of social presence and motivation are found. It suggests that children’s social responses and learning motivations are triggered equally strongly by the two social cues. These findings suggest that designers of educa- tional technology could use speech or dynamic emoticons to build more socia- ble interfaces that could boost children’s motivation in learning. Keywords: Cultural difference, Sociability, Interaction design, Speech, Dynamic Emoticon, Children. 1 Introduction 1.1 The Social-Emotional Interaction between Human and Computer People are emotional and social. The role of human emotions is an influential factor in the way people deal with and relate to objects and artifacts [22]. Given this, human emotional needs and social desires have to be taken into consideration in developing products for people. Research also reveals that human-computer interaction is on both a social and emotional level. In light of the findings, new theories that enable or aug- ment socio-emotional interaction between people and computers are explored [18, 24].