Incorporating stress estimation into user-centred agent-based platforms

Current virtual environments for communication, cooperation and problem solving lack the rich context information that is present in face-to-face interactions. People rely on this context information, that includes body language or level of stress just to name a few, to take decisions. In this paper we present an approach whose objective is to be able to acquire context information about the users of such technological tools, making that information available for the tool and eventually to other people. We present a prototype being developed in the context of an agent-based conflict resolution platform. As a result, we achieve communication and problem solving virtual environments that are richer and closer to traditional environments, allowing people and software agents to take better and more rational decisions