Can Smart Voice Assistant Induce Social Facilitation Effect? A Preliminary Study

摘要

The present study investigated whether a smart voice assistant can induce social facilitation effect. We designed a 3 (social presence: alone, smart voice assistant, human assistant) ×2 (task difficulty: easy, difficult) within-subject experiment. Sixteen university students participated in the experiment. The results showed that a smart voice assistant could induce social facilitation effect when participants performed modular arithmetic tasks, i.e., the response time of easy tasks was shortened while that of difficult tasks was lengthened. No significant difference in accuracy rates was found among three social presence conditions. Intensities of social facilitation effect between smart voice assistant present and human assistant present showed similar strength. These findings provide practical implications in designing work organization modes involving smart voice assistants.