Evaluating Human–Automation Etiquette Strategies to Mitigate User Frustration and Improve Learning in Affect-Aware Tutoring

Human–automation etiquette applies human–human etiquette conventions to human–computer interaction (HCI). The research described in this paper investigates how to mitigate user frustration and support student learning through changes in the style in which a computer tutor interacts with a learner. Frustration can significantly impact the quality of learning in tutoring. This study examined an approach to mitigate frustration through the use of different etiquette strategies to change the amount of imposition feedback placed on the learner. An experiment was conducted to explore how varying the interaction style of system feedback impacted aspects of the learning process. System feedback was varied through different etiquette strategies. Participants solved mathematics problems under different frustration conditions with feedback given in different etiquette styles. Changing etiquette strategies from one math problem to the next led to changes in motivation, confidence satisfaction, and performance. The most effective etiquette strategies changed depending on if the user was frustrated or not. This work aims to provide mechanisms to support the promotion of individualized learning in the context of high level math instruction by basing affect-aware adaptive tutoring system design on varying etiquette strategies

Mitigating User Frustration through Adaptive Feedback based on Human-Automation Etiquette Strategies

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of feedback and user frustration in human-computer interaction (HCI) and examine how to mitigate user frustration through feedback based on human-automation etiquette strategies. User frustration in HCI indicates a negative feeling that occurs when efforts to achieve a goal are impeded. User frustration impacts not only the communication with the computer itself, but also productivity, learning, and cognitive workload. Affect-aware systems have been studied to recognize user emotions and respond in different ways. Affect-aware systems need to be adaptive systems that change their behavior depending on users’ emotions. Adaptive systems have four categories of adaptations. Previous research has focused on primarily function allocation and to a lesser extent information content and task scheduling. However, the fourth approach, changing the interaction styles is the least explored because of the interplay of human factors considerations. Three interlinked studies were conducted to investigate the consequences of user frustration and explore mitigation techniques. Study 1 showed that delayed feedback from the system led to higher user frustration, anger, cognitive workload, and physiological arousal. In addition, delayed feedback decreased task performance and system usability in a human-robot interaction (HRI) context. Study 2 evaluated a possible approach of mitigating user frustration by applying human-human etiquette strategies in a tutoring context. The results of Study 2 showed that changing etiquette strategies led to changes in performance, motivation, confidence, and satisfaction. The most effective etiquette strategies changed when users were frustrated. Based on these results, an adaptive tutoring system prototype was developed and evaluated in Study 3. By utilizing a rule set derived from Study 2, the tutor was able to use different automation etiquette strategies to target and improve motivation, confidence, satisfaction, and performance using different strategies, under different levels of user frustration. This work establishes that changing the interaction style alone of a computer tutor can affect a user’s motivation, confidence, satisfaction, and performance. Furthermore, the beneficial effect of changing etiquette strategies is greater when users are frustrated. This work provides a basis for future work to develop affect-aware adaptive systems to mitigate user frustration

Leveling the Playing Field: Attracting, Engaging, and Advancing People with Disabilities

People with disabilities experience significant challenges in finding employment. The participation of people with disabilities in the workforce and their median income are both less than half that of the civilian workforce. They work part time 68 percent more frequently than people without disabilities. These disheartening results persist despite the enactment of significant federal legislation aimed at making the workplace more supportive and accessible to people with disabilities. The Conference Board Research Working Group (RWG) on Improving Employment Outcomes for People with Disabilities was convened to address how to overcome these disparities. It was sponsored by the Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University, under a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the U.S. Department of Education. The RWG members focused on four questions: 1) The business case: Is it advantageous for organizations to employ people with disabilities? 2) Organizational readiness: What should organizations do to create a workplace that enables people with disabilities to thrive and advance? 3) Measurement: How can success for both people with disabilities and the organization itself be determined? 4) Self-disclosure: How can people with disabilities, especially those whose disabilities are not obvious, be encouraged to identify themselves so that resources can be directed toward them and outcomes can be measured

Virtual Teams: Work/Life Challenges - Keeping Remote Employees Engaged

Remotely located employees are quickly becoming a norm in the modern workplace in response to evidence that telecommuters save on costs and produce more efficiently. There are many intangible benefits also felt with the increasing prevalence of remote employees. Telecommuters are more satisfied with their work/life balance and report lower rates of job burnout. Though there are also many well-identified setbacks remotely located managers and employees may face. Employers see the most success with telecommuting by first recruiting the people best fit to fill these remote roles. However, the process of developing remote employees is a process that requires constant monitoring. The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices being used by companies to keep remote employees engaged while simultaneously avoiding burnout

Robot's Inner Speech Effects on Trust and Anthropomorphic Cues in Human-Robot Cooperation

Inner Speech is an essential but also elusive human psychological process which refers to an everyday covert internal conversation with oneself. We argue that programming a robot with an overt self-talk system, which simulates human inner speech, might enhance human trust by improving robot transparency and anthropomorphism. For this reasons, this work aims to investigate if robot’s inner speech, here intended as overt self-talk, affects human trust and anthropomorphism when human and robot cooperate. A group of participants was engaged in collaboration with the robot. During cooperation, the robot talks to itself. To evaluate if the robot’s inner speech influences human trust, two questionnaires were administered to each participant before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the cooperative session with the robot. Preliminary results evidenced differences between the answers of participants in the pre-test and post-test assessment, suggesting that robot’s inner speech influences human trust. Indeed, participant’s levels of trust and perception of robot anthropomorphic features increase after the experimental interaction with the robot

From Orators to Cyborgs: The Evolution of Delivery, Performativity, and Gender

@font-face { font-family: Cambria ; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times New Roman ; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The purpose of this project is to provide a thorough account of delivery by tracing the history and evolution of delivery from antiquity to the present day in order to expose the spread and transmission of proto-masculine ideologies through delivery. By looking at delivery from an evolutionary perspective, delivery no longer becomes a tool of rhetoric, but the technology of rhetoric, evolving over time in the same way the system of rhetoric itself has evolved. Contemporary scholarship on delivery continues to look at delivery as a tool—as the ink, the paper, the computer screen, the keyboard, the font, the hypertext, the web design, and so forth—of communication. Contemporary scholarship re-works the classical definition of delivery to fit into a contemporary context, and consequently ignores the proto-masculinity embedded into classical delivery and its spread from public speaking to all speaking situations—and the larger consequence of this approach is that proto-masculinity remains embedded and idealized. Focusing specifically on delivery’s history and evolution into a post-human, cyborg technology demonstrates how proto-masculinity has operated within delivery and how proto-masculinity has been spread through delivery instruction. The importance of re-situating delivery within the rhetorical canons affects rhetoric as a whole because it demonstrates that not only is delivery still crucial to rhetoric, and possibly still the most important rhetorical canon, but also because it de-naturalizes the proto-masculine imperatives embedded within delivery and conveyed through delivered language performances

Introducing Identity

This chapter provides an introductory overview of theories of identity and indicates some of the broad ways in which they might be applied to young people's interactions with digital media. The first part of the chapter offers a brief account of five major areas of theory: social-psychological theories of adolescence; sociological theories of youth culture; theories of social identity, and the relations between individuals and groups; notions of identity politics; and theories of subjectivity and modernity. The second part of the chapter covers three major themes that are at stake in the analysis of young people and digital media: theories of technology; the notion of young people as a "digital generation"; and the place of learning, both in and beyond schools. In this course of this broad-ranging overview, the chapter also prefigures some of the more specific themes addressed in the chapters that make up the remainder of the volume

Preparing millennials as digital citizens and socially and environmentally responsible business professionals in a socially irresponsible climate

As of 2015, a millennial born in the 1990's became the largest population in the workplace and are still growing. Studies indicate that a millennial is tech savvy but lag in the exercise of digital responsibility. In addition, they are passive towards environmental sustainability and fail to grasp the importance of social responsibility. This paper provides a review of such findings relating to business communications educators in their classrooms. The literature should enable the development of a millennial as an excellent global citizen through business communications curricula that emphasizes digital citizenship, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. The impetus for this work is to provide guidance in the development of courses and teaching strategies customized to the development of each millennial as a digital, environmental and socially responsible global citizen

Adaptivenes in Virtual Teams

Computer supported teams are capturing the attention of academics and practitioners as organisations increasingly put them into practice as virtual teams. The practical relevance of current research into computer supported teams could be increased if greater attention is paid to organisational challenges as they form the context within which virtual teamwork takes place. A model of organisational challenges mapped against processes of adaptation is developed to highlight principle factors affecting virtual teams. A sample of current research groups studying computer-supported teams is plotted onto this map to reveal the extent to which current research addresses these contextual factors. From this map insights are distilled with respect to what is known and is not known about virtual teams. This paper concludes with specific research needs in the study of virtual teams