Thesis Defense -Berkay Türkgeldi (MSCS)

Berkay Türkgeldi - M.Sc. Computer Science

Asst. Prof. Reyhan Aydoğan – Advisor

Date: 26.08.2020

Time: 14:30

Location: This meeting will be held ONLINE. An e-mail is sent to  gizem.bakir@ozyegin.edu.tr in order to participate in this defense.

Familiarity Effect on Human-Agent Negotiations

Thesis Committee:

Asst. Prof. Reyhan Aydoğan,  Özyeğin University

Asst.Prof. Dr. Hasan Sözer,  Özyeğin University

Asst. Prof.Gökhan İnce,  Istanbul Technical University

Abstract:

Artificial Intelligence has changed our world in various ways. People have started to interact with a variety of intelligent systems on a daily basis. As the interaction between human and AI systems increases day by day, the factors influencing their communication have become more and more important especially in the field of human-agent negotiation. Therefore, it is necessary to study the factors affecting human-human negotiation while designing agents negotiating with their human counterparts. As familiarity is one of these factors, this work aims to investigate the effect of familiarity on human-agent negotiation so that we can design more effective negotiation systems.

Being familiar with the other party may influence the way of interaction and hence the process and outcome of the negotiation. Our hypothesis is that negotiating with a familiar opponent would create a difference in terms of the negotiation process and outcome. In order to study this effect in human-agent negotiations, we developed a new framework in which human participants negotiate with an avatar. To measure the effectiveness of the appearance familiarity in negotiation, two control variables are defined: negotiating with a celebrity avatar and negotiating with a non-celebrity avatar. In order to avoid the learning effect, we adopt the between-subject experiment design. We recruited 67 participants and analyzed their negotiation data elaborately as well as their subjective opinions specified in the questionnaires. Our experimental results showed that being familiar with the opponent affected both the negotiation process and outcome. Particularly, human participants had a tendency to be more collaborative when their opponent is a celebrity avatar versus a non-celebrity avatar.

Bio: 

Berkay Türkgeldi is working as a Senior Software Specialist in the IoT department of the Application Group Management at Vestel Elektronik company. He graduated from Dokuz Eylül University with bachelor's degrees in Computer Engineering department and he achieved the success of top-scoring student in the department with the second top-scoring student in the faculty. After that, he did his military service as a short term in Ankara and after he came back to İzmir, he started to work at Vestel Elektronik. While he is actively working, at the same time, he joined the educational program of Vestel Academy for his master's degree which is working with Özyeğin University.

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Kişisel Verilerin Korunması/Aydınlatma Metni

Özyeğin Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü bünyesindeki programlarda, izleyici olarak katılınan online platformlarda gerçekleştirilen aleni akademik faaliyetlerin sadece idari ve yasal yükümlülüklerin yerine getirilmesi amacıyla kayıt altına alındığı, söz konusu kayıt ile elde edilen kişisel verilerin ilgililer tarafından başka bir amaçla kullanılamayacağı hususunda şahsınızı aydınlatır, toplantıya gönüllü katılım ile bu hususu beyan ve taahhüt etmiş olduğunuzu belirtir, gereğini önemle rica ederiz. 

Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü