Loneliness, social support and cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stress

Self-reported or explicit loneliness and social support have been inconsistently associated with cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress. The present study aimed to adapt an implicit measure of loneliness, and use it alongside the measures of explicit loneliness and social support, to investigate their correlations with CVR to laboratory stress. Twenty-five female volunteers aged between 18 and 39 years completed self-reported measures of loneliness and social support, and an Implicit Association Test (IAT) of loneliness. The systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) reactivity indices were measured in response to psychosocial stress induced in the laboratory. Functional support indices of social support were significantly correlated with CVR reactivity to stress. Interestingly, implicit, but not explicit, loneliness was significantly correlated with DBP reactivity after one of the stressors. No associations were found between structural support and CVR indices. Results are discussed in terms of validity of implicit versus explicit measures and possible factors that affect physiological outcomes

Socialoscope: Sensing User Loneliness and Its Interactions with Personality Traits

Loneliness and social isolation can have a serious impact on one’s mental health, leading to increased stress, lower self-esteem, panic attacks, and drug or alcohol addictions. Older adults and international students are disproportionately affected by loneliness. This thesis investigates Socialoscope, a smartphone app that passively detects loneliness in smartphone users based on the user’s day-to-day social interactions, communication and smartphone activity sensed by the smartphone’s built-in sensors. Statistical analysis is used to determine smartphone features most correlated with loneliness. A previously established relationship between loneliness and personality type is explored. The most correlated features are used to synthesize machine learning classifiers that infer loneliness levels from smartphone sensor features with an accuracy of 90%. These classifiers can be used to make the Socialoscope an intelligent loneliness sensing Android app. The results show that, of the five Big-Five Personality Traits, emotional stability and extraversion personality traits are strongly correlated with the sensor features such as number of messages, number of outgoing calls, number of late night browser searches, number of long incoming or outgoing calls and number of auto-joined trusted Wi-Fi SSIDs. Moreover, the classifier accuracy while classifying loneliness levels is significantly improved to 98% by taking these personality traits into consideration. Socialoscope can be integrated into the healthcare system as an early warning indicator of patients requiring intervention or utilized for personal self-reflection

The Effects of Social Media on the Quality of Life of People With Aphasia

This thesis reviews the literature regarding the effects of social media on the quality of life of people with aphasia. The review focuses on communication deficits, social isolation, quality of life, types of social media, aphasia technology and aphasia. The literature suggests that communication deficits in aphasia lead to feelings of social isolation, which then lead to a lower quality of life. However, less is known about the impact of social media on people with aphasia. Findings from this literature review suggest that technology may improve social connectedness, thereby decreasing social isolation and improving the overall quality of life of people with aphasia

Loneliness and Health: Physiological and Cognitive Mechanisms in Adulthood and Childhood

This thesis outlines a series of six studies that examine the potential cognitive and physiological mechanisms that underpin the association between loneliness and health. The current theoretical model (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009) proposes that loneliness is linked to poor health through hypervigilance to social threat (HSTH), resulting in increased activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The first two studies address gaps in the adult literature for loneliness and health and examine HSTH and the HPA axis stress response in real life social contexts: public speaking and meeting strangers. In adulthood, long term loneliness has been linked to poor health (Shioitz-Ezra & Ayalon, 2010); within childhood literature loneliness and health has only been examined in cross-sectional studies (Mahon & Yarcheski, 2003; Mahon et al., 1993). Thus, the fourth and fifth studies use a longitudinal design to examine loneliness and health in childhood. Cacioppo and Hawkley (2009) also propose that the HSTH in lonely people results in cognitive biases in processing of social information, which affect behavioural responses in social situations. Although cognitive biases have been examined in adulthood, this is yet to be examined in children, so the sixth study addresses this gap in the literature. The final study examines relationships between loneliness and perception of social threat in a real life social context for children: the transition from primary to secondary school. Findings demonstrate, similar to adult literature, that long-term loneliness in childhood is linked to poor health. Further, evidence for HSTH in lonely adults and children in real life social contexts was demonstrated, offering ecological validity for the current theoretical model (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). The results also implicate chronic stress and a lack of cortisol flexibility as functional mechanisms linking loneliness to poor health. Unlike research with adults, memory biases for social information were not found in lonely children, indicating that lonely children may process social information different to lonely adults. Lonely children also found it harder to ignore irrelevant distractors in cognitive tasks than non-lonely children, when the distracting information involved speech, but not when it was a visual distraction, indicating that speech information is processed differently than other distractors in lonely children. It is argued that Cacioppo and Hawkley’s (2009) model should be re-examined in light of the findings. Key areas for examination of the current theoretical model (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009) are highlighted and discussed: the adoption of chronic stress as a functional mechanism linking loneliness to poor health, investigation of mechanisms that result in a reduction of loneliness levels, and an introduction of a developmental perspective to understanding processes involved in the maintenance of loneliness

Conversational affective social robots for ageing and dementia support

Socially assistive robots (SAR) hold significant potential to assist older adults and people with dementia in human engagement and clinical contexts by supporting mental health and independence at home. While SAR research has recently experienced prolific growth, long-term trust, clinical translation and patient benefit remain immature. Affective human-robot interactions are unresolved and the deployment of robots with conversational abilities is fundamental for robustness and humanrobot engagement. In this paper, we review the state of the art within the past two decades, design trends, and current applications of conversational affective SAR for ageing and dementia support. A horizon scanning of AI voice technology for healthcare, including ubiquitous smart speakers, is further introduced to address current gaps inhibiting home use. We discuss the role of user-centred approaches in the design of voice systems, including the capacity to handle communication breakdowns for effective use by target populations. We summarise the state of development in interactions using speech and natural language processing, which forms a baseline for longitudinal health monitoring and cognitive assessment. Drawing from this foundation, we identify open challenges and propose future directions to advance conversational affective social robots for: 1) user engagement, 2) deployment in real-world settings, and 3) clinical translation

Use of an agile bridge in the development of assistive technology

Engaging with end users in the development of assistive technologies remains one of the major challenges for researchers and developers in the field of accessibility and HCI. Developing usable software systems for people with complex disabilities is problematic, software developers are wary of using user-centred design, one of the main methods by which usability can be improved, due to concerns about how best to work with adults with complex disabilities, in particular Severe Speech and Physical Impairments (SSPI) and how to involve them in research. This paper reports on how the adoption of an adapted agile approach involving the incorporation of a user advocate on the research team helped in meeting this challenge in one software project and offers suggestions for how this could be used by other development teams

The effects of giving on givers

The authors were supported by two grants at the time of writing this article. Stephanie Brown was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (#0820609, Physiological Effects of Helping Others) and Sara Konrath was supported by a grant from Wake Forest University via the John Templeton Foundation (Dispositional Empathy as a Character Trait)

Investigating the Day-to-Day Experiences of Users with Traumatic Brain Injury with Conversational Agents

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause cognitive, communication, and psychological challenges that profoundly limit independence in everyday life. Conversational Agents (CAs) can provide individuals with TBI with cognitive and communication support, although little is known about how they make use of CAs to address injury-related needs. In this study, we gave nine adults with TBI an at-home CA for four weeks to investigate use patterns, challenges, and design requirements, focusing particularly on injury-related use. The findings revealed significant gaps between the current capabilities of CAs and accessibility challenges faced by TBI users. We also identified 14 TBI-related activities that participants engaged in with CAs. We categorized those activities into four groups: mental health, cognitive activities, healthcare and rehabilitation, and routine activities. Design implications focus on accessibility improvements and functional designs of CAs that can better support the day-to-day needs of people with TBI.Comment: In Proceedings The 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS'23