Chapter 8
The effects of using machine translation on perceptions of source
credibility
Machine translation has great potential for increasing the
reach and spread of risk communication in multi-lingual settings. However, the
social psychological effects of communicating via machine translation applications
remain unknown. This study takes a first step to address this research gap. An
online experiment with between-participants design was conducted to investigate the
effects of using machine translation on participants’ perceptions of source
credibility. Participants were asked to navigate a map of a foreign city and follow
the route directions that were given to them by a person in a video either in their
first language or using a machine translation application. Regression models were
used to analyze task performance, perceptions of task difficulty, and perceptions of
source credibility. Contrary to expectations, the results show no significant effect
of using machine translation on the perceptions of source credibility. Implications
for risk communication and future research are discussed.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Related work on source credibility, trust,
and technology-mediated communication
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Participant sample
- 3.2Independent variables and experimental design
- 3.3Dependent variables and methods of analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Task performance
- 4.2Perceived difficulty of the task
- 4.3Source credibility
- 5.Discussion and implications for risk communication
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Notes
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References