Examining Cross-Cultural Differences in Intelligent Vehicle Agents: Repair Strategies after Their Failures

Anthropomorphic design in intelligent vehicle agents (IVAs) is crucial for driving safety and user experience. Cultural background may shape user preferences, as evidenced by Chinese car manufacturers offering more anthropomorphic IVAs (e.g., physical robots, human-like virtual agents) than their Western counterparts. While prior research has examined cross-cultural differences in visual anthropomorphism, behavioral anthropomorphism remains understudied. Here we evaluated the performance of eight IVAs (five from Chinese brands, three from Western brands) in responding to user requests and their social repair behaviors (e.g., apology and promise) following request failures. Overall, Chinese and Western IVAs did not differ in their corrective responses or likelihood of employing repair behaviors. However, Chinese IVAs were more likely to use combined behaviors rather than single ones and to incorporate intimacy expressions in their repair behaviors. Our findings highlight cultural design nuances in behavioral anthropomorphism, with implications for the culturally adaptive design of IVAs.