A Dialogue Agent to Let Users Experience and Gently Enhance the "Gyaru-Mind"

Momoka Ikegami, Takuya Kato, Saizo Aoyagi, Tatsunori Hirai


Abstract
In Japan, the term "Gyaru-Mind" is commonly used to describe an upbeat mindset associated with gyaru culture, often linked to proactive positivity and strong self-affirmation. While it is widely regarded as beneficial, "Gyaru-Mind" lacks an academic operationalization and practical method for internalization. In this work, we define a quantitative index, "GYARU-MIDX", built from eight text-based factors, and implement a dialogue agent named GYARU-AI that uses this index in real time. During conversation, the agent estimates a user’s score and produces brief, context-appropriate replies by choosing between advice and empathy, so responses are not just positive all the time. A live "GYARU-MIDX" view provides real-time feedback for reflection and practice. The current system is Japanese-only because it is trained on Japanese "gyaru" style. We describe initial design and modeling results and outline limitations and next steps.
Anthology ID:
2026.iwsds-1.14
Volume:
Proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue System Technology
Month:
February
Year:
2026
Address:
Trento, Italy
Editors:
Giuseppe Riccardi, Seyed Mahed Mousavi, Maria Ines Torres, Koichiro Yoshino, Zoraida Callejas, Shammur Absar Chowdhury, Yun-Nung Chen, Frederic Bechet, Joakim Gustafson, Géraldine Damnati, Alex Papangelis, Luis Fernando D’Haro, John Mendonça, Raffaella Bernardi, Dilek Hakkani-Tur, Giuseppe "Pino" Di Fabbrizio, Tatsuya Kawahara, Firoj Alam, Gokhan Tur, Michael Johnston
Venue:
IWSDS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
128–133
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.iwsds-1.14/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Momoka Ikegami, Takuya Kato, Saizo Aoyagi, and Tatsunori Hirai. 2026. A Dialogue Agent to Let Users Experience and Gently Enhance the "Gyaru-Mind". In Proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue System Technology, pages 128–133, Trento, Italy. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
A Dialogue Agent to Let Users Experience and Gently Enhance the “Gyaru-Mind” (Ikegami et al., IWSDS 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.iwsds-1.14.pdf