Artificial Companion: building a impacting relation

International audienceIn this paper we show that we are in front of an evolution from traditional human-computer interactions to a kind of intense exchange between the human user and new generation of virtual or real systems -Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) or affective robots- bringing the interaction to another level, the "relation level". We call these systems "companions" that is to say systems with which the user wants to build a kind of life- long relationship. We thus argue that we need to go beyond the concepts acceptability and believability of system to get closer to human and look for "impact" concept. We will see that this problematic is shared between the community of researchers in Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) and in affective robotics fields. We put forward a definition of an "impacting relation" that will enable believable interactive ECAs or robots to become believable impacting companions

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Intelligent support technologies for older people : an analysis of characteristics and roles

For almost two decades there have been many developments in using intelligent technologies to support older people, with many different terms proposed to describe these technologies including assistive robots, embodied conversational agents and relational agents. Many technologies have been proposed in many different configurations and many assistance roles have been explored. Characteristics of these technologies include tangible or virtual; anthropomorphic, biomorphic, creature or object-like; level of visual realism; paralinguistic abilities; interactivity; adaptability; movement; and positioning. The assistive roles proposed include providing information, advice and reminders, helping with physical tasks, monitoring, providing companionship and emotional support. This paper provides an overview of the characteristics and roles of these technologies and attempts to clarify some of the terminology used. It aims to provide a guide for researchers from the wide range of disciplines working on such technologies for supporting older people

A Framework for Research in Gamified Mobile Guide Applications using Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs)

Mobile Guides are mobile applications that provide players with local and location-based services (LBS), such as navigation assistance, where and when they need them most. Advances in mobile technologies in recent years have enabled the gamification of these applications, opening up new opportunities to transfer education and culture through game play. However, adding traditional game elements such as PBLs (points, badges, and leaderboards) alone cannot ensure that the intended learning outcomes will be met, as the player’s cognitive resources are shared between the application and the surrounding environment. This distribution of resources prevents players from easily immersing themselves into the educational scenario. Adding artificial conversational characters (ECAs) that simulate the social norms found in real-life human-to-human guide scenarios has the potential to address this problem and improve the player’s experience and learning of cultural narratives [1]. Although significant progress has been made towards creating game-like mobile guides with ECAs ([2], [3]), there is still a lack of a unified framework that enables researchers and practitioners to investigate the potential effects of such applications to players and how to approach the concepts of player experience, cognitive accessibility and usability in this context. This paper presents a theoretically-well supported research framework consisted of four key components: differences in players, different features of the gamified task, aspects of how the ECA looks, sound or behaves and different mobile environments. Furthermore, it provides based on this framework a working definition of what player experience, cognitive accessibility and usability are in the context of game-like mobile guide applications. Finally, a synthesis of the results of six empirical studies conducted within this research framework is discussed and a series of design guidelines for the effective gamification of mobile guide applications using ECAs are presented. Results show that an ECA can positively affect the quality of the player’s experience, but it did not elicit better player retention of cultural narratives and navigation of routes

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

Procedural-Reasoning Architecture for Applied Behavior Analysis-based Instructions

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disability affecting as many as 1 in every 88 children. While there is no known cure for ASD, there are known behavioral and developmental interventions, based on demonstrated efficacy, that have become the predominant treatments for improving social, adaptive, and behavioral functions in children. Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)-based early childhood interventions are evidence based, efficacious therapies for autism that are widely recognized as effective approaches to remediation of the symptoms of ASD. They are, however, labor intensive and consequently often inaccessible at the recommended levels. Recent advancements in socially assistive robotics and applications of virtual intelligent agents have shown that children with ASD accept intelligent agents as effective and often preferred substitutes for human therapists. This research is nascent and highly experimental with no unifying, interdisciplinary, and integral approach to development of intelligent agents based therapies, especially not in the area of behavioral interventions. Motivated by the absence of the unifying framework, we developed a conceptual procedural-reasoning agent architecture (PRA-ABA) that, we propose, could serve as a foundation for ABA-based assistive technologies involving virtual, mixed or embodied agents, including robots. This architecture and related research presented in this disser- tation encompass two main areas: (a) knowledge representation and computational model of the behavioral aspects of ABA as applicable to autism intervention practices, and (b) abstract architecture for multi-modal, agent-mediated implementation of these practices