Design and Study of Emotions in Virtual Humans for Assistive Technologies

This thesis presents the design and study of emotionally aligned prompts given by virtual humans for persons with cognitive disabilities such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Our goal is to understand how emotions in virtual humans are interpreted by people. Persons with ADRD often need assistance from a care partner to complete activities of daily living such as washing hands, making food, or getting dressed. Artificially intelligent systems have been developed that can assist in such situations by giving automated prompts or cues. Our long term aim is to enhance such systems by delivering automated prompts that are emotionally aligned with individuals in order to help with prompt adherence and with long-term adoption. As a step in this direction, we designed and conducted user study with three different virtual humans, who expressively communicate prompts for a simple handwashing task. The user study was conducted in two phases. The phase I study had all age group people as participants and involved a female virtual human character with facial expressions and body gestures. The phase II study had elderly people as participants and involved both male and female virtual human characters with a focus on their facial expressions. Prompts were evaluated with respect to three basic and important dimensions of emotional experience: evaluation, potency, and activity. The results of the phase I study showed that, people generally agree on the evaluation dimension, whereas in phase II, we had more consensus on evaluation and potency dimensions and were close to consensus on activity. This thesis gives an overview of the hand washing system, and then details the design of the virtual human character and prompts and the results and analysis of the user study for both phases

Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

An Embodied Conversational Agent to Minimize the Effects of Social Isolation During Hospitalization

Social isolation and loneliness contribute to the development of depression and anxiety. Comorbidity of mental health issues in hospitalized patients increases the length of stay in hospital by up to 109% and costs the healthcare sector billions of dollars each year. This study aims to understand the potential suitability of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) to reduce feelings of social isolation and loneliness among hospital patients. To facilitate this, a video prototype of an ECA was developed for use in single-occupant hospital rooms. The ECA was designed to act as an intelligent assistant, a rehabilitation guide, and a conversational partner. A co-design workshop involving five healthcare professionals was conducted. The thematic analysis of the workshop transcripts identified some major themes including improving health literacy, reducing the time burden on healthcare professionals, preventing secondary mental health issues, and supporting higher acceptance of digital technologies by elderly patients

Positive Media: An Introductory Exploration

Media has become an increasingly large part of our lives, and therefore plays a crucial role in our well-being. Positive psychology, the science of well-being, can be complemented through the new potentialities of media, which in many ways also seeks to improve the human experience. I create the context for a new dialogue about what positive media might be. By adopting a positive lens and discussing exemplars in different formats, this paper explores the ways media effectively incorporates elements of well-being. Through this positive approach, we gain an appreciation for what media does well. The paper also recommends ways that people can consume media in support of their well-being, and ways media creators can design content that optimizes human flourishing. Lastly, the paper encourages a dialogue between the important fields of positive psychology and media. With a partnership between these fields, it posits the opportunity for dramatically increasing global well-being