Are Embodied Conversational Agents effective Tools for collecting Patient-reported Outcome Measures? – Towards a novel Approach in Multiple Sclerosis Care

Treating chronic diseases often involves repeated assessments from the patient’s perspective to guide therapy decisions and promote quality of care. Therefore, patient- reported outcome measures (PROMs) have been established in the form of questionnaires. One promising approach for collecting PROMs are embodied conversational agents (ECAs), which have the potential to make the questionnaire completion more engaging, interactive and lower the response burden for the patient. Building on Satisficing Theory, this research-in-progress paper reports on the design and preliminary evaluation of an ECA for multiple sclerosis patients. The results indicate that such a system meets the needs of the patients and motivates a comparative study to contribute further evidence on the use and advantage of ECAs for this purpose. Based on a literature review, an evaluation approach including a research model is derived, and implications for future research are discussed

Affect and believability in game characters:a review of the use of affective computing in games

Virtual agents are important in many digital environments. Designing a character that highly engages users in terms of interaction is an intricate task constrained by many requirements. One aspect that has gained more attention recently is the effective dimension of the agent. Several studies have addressed the possibility of developing an affect-aware system for a better user experience. Particularly in games, including emotional and social features in NPCs adds depth to the characters, enriches interaction possibilities, and combined with the basic level of competence, creates a more appealing game. Design requirements for emotionally intelligent NPCs differ from general autonomous agents with the main goal being a stronger player-agent relationship as opposed to problem solving and goal assessment. Nevertheless, deploying an affective module into NPCs adds to the complexity of the architecture and constraints. In addition, using such composite NPC in games seems beyond current technology, despite some brave attempts. However, a MARPO-type modular architecture would seem a useful starting point for adding emotions

Chapter From the Lab to the Real World: Affect Recognition Using Multiple Cues and Modalities

Interdisciplinary concept of dissipative soliton is unfolded in connection with ultrafast fibre lasers. The different mode-locking techniques as well as experimental realizations of dissipative soliton fibre lasers are surveyed briefly with an emphasis on their energy scalability. Basic topics of the dissipative soliton theory are elucidated in connection with concepts of energy scalability and stability. It is shown that the parametric space of dissipative soliton has reduced dimension and comparatively simple structure that simplifies the analysis and optimization of ultrafast fibre lasers. The main destabilization scenarios are described and the limits of energy scalability are connected with impact of optical turbulence and stimulated Raman scattering. The fast and slow dynamics of vector dissipative solitons are exposed

Embodiment and the senses in travelogue filmmaking

This practice-based research presents an analysis of the representation of embodied experience in the travelogue film genre. It reflects upon the embodied and synaesthesic nature of the cinematic experience by tracing a shift in travelogue filmmaking from the ocular realism characteristic of early travelogue films to the emergence and proliferation of subjective approaches. Moreover, it analyses experimental travelogue films and the capacity of non-linear and non-narrative structures to express sensuous, embodied perception. 9 Meditations is the practice component of this thesis. It is an experimental travelogue film. Through its production this research explores the translation of embodied experience as a multi-sensory process into filmmaking practice. In the field of film studies, the travelogue has not been widely discussed outside historical approaches, and it has certainly never been discussed in relation to phenomenology and embodied sensation. This research articulates a new conceptual framework for both the production and theorisation of the travelogue film, as a form that is intrinsically related to performance, subjectivity and embodied perception. Moreover, this research concerns both the production process in filmmaking practice and the cinematic experience as grounded in synaesthesic, embodied perception. This approach brings to the forefront the capacity of audiovisual practice to both encode and produce sensuous knowledge

Technologies of the spirit: Devotional Islam, sound reproduction and the dialectics of mediation and immediacy in Mauritius

Users of contemporary media technology in religious settings often oscillate between immediacy in spiritual interaction and the increasing complexity and visibility of media technology as human artifacts. Drawing on approaches to mediation from philosophy and media theory, I examine Mauritian Muslims’ uses of sound reproduction in performing a devotional genre to show how theological assumptions about mediation shape the domestication of media technology in religious settings in different ways. A semiotic approach can throw new light on the dialectics of mediation and immediacy that frequently result in searches for technical solutions to bypass established forms of interacting with the divine

Is Google Duplex too human? : exploring user perceptions of opaque conversational agents

Conversational Agents (CAs) are increasingly embedded in consumer products, such as smartphones, home devices, and industry devices. Advancements in machine generated voice, such as the Google Duplex feature released in May 2018, aim to perfectly mimic the human voice while constructing a scenario in which users do not know whether they are talking to a human or a CA. Exactly how well users can distinguish between human/machine voices, how the degree of humanness impacts user emotional perception, and what ethical concerns this raises, remains an underexplored area. To answer these questions, I collected 405 surveys, including both an experimental design that exposed users to three different voices (human, advanced machine, and simple machine) and questions about the ethical implication of CAs. Results of the experiment revealed that users have difficulty distinguishing between human and advanced machine voices. Users do not experience the negative feeling referred to as the uncanny valley when listening to advanced synthetic audio and they only narrowly prefer a real human voice over a synthetic voice. Results from the questions about ethical implications revealed the importance of context and transparency. Drawing on these findings, I discuss the implications of advanced CAs and suggest strategies for ethical design.Journalis