Using First-and Third-person POV to Bridge Cultural Misunderstandings in Cognitive Learning System of Different Cultural Communication in Simulated Crowd

Abstract

Learning about cultural differences between individuals is a challenging topic because people from many different countries have to work, live, and communicate together, but everyone's background affects their perception. Herein, we create a virtual cultural learning assistance system that can help people learn and interact with cultural agents and learn conversational skills. Learning from simulated first- and third-person camera points of view (POVs) is a method through which participants obtain different perspectives and understandings of a situation. This experiment was conducted with Japanese participants, who were asked to learn from and interact with a digital avatar acting as a customer agent and shopkeeper at the Thai night market. The behavior of the customer agent and the shopkeeper avatar were designed based on the Hofstede cultural dimension with Thai cultural values (Individualism:20, Masculinity:34, Uncertainty avoidance:64). A significant difference between first- and third-person POV groups was found on the individualism dimension (IDV). Results showed that most Japanese participants in the third-person POV group understood the Thai culture IDV better from our simulation than those in the first-person POV group. Furthermore, participants from both first- and third-person POV groups gave a similar score for Thai culture in the masculinity and uncertainty avoidance dimensions. Thus, this scenario and setting were suitable for learning and understanding Thai cultural communication at the night flea-market in both first- and third-person POVs.