Introducing conversational explanations as a novel response strategy to data breach incidents in digital commerce

In order to individualize and personalize digital services, an increasing number of e-commerce providers are exploiting abundant amounts of customer information. Alongside these positive effects, an inherent risk of compromise of customer information arises, resulting in data breaches. Compelled by regulations, companies are obliged to notify their customers. Previous literature indicates that different data breach response strategies can mitigate the negative effects of these security incidents. Drawing on data breach and conversational agent (CA) research, we theorize that the manner in which a data breach is communicated is equally relevant. We test our developed hypotheses in an online experiment (n=89). Our results show that explaining a data breach increases customer satisfaction. Simultaneously, we reveal that CAs lend themselves as a tool to positively influence this degree of explanation. Our work provides novel insights into the centrality of explanation in a data breach response and their positive correlation with CAs

STAY WITH ME - CONVERSATIONAL CHURN PREVENTION IN DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE

Lots of organizations use subscription business models. However, with increasing competition and technological progress switching costs for customers are decreasing. This development can translate to serious issues for subscription-based businesses, requiring action. Traditionally, businesses used mailings or calls, which are costly, time-consuming and often not effective. In this research-in-progress paper, we explore conversational churn prevention as a potential remedy. We present a conversational agent with persuasive design features (e.g., nudges) and first results from a pre-study. We conduct an in-between subject experiment and interviews for our mixed-methods evaluation of our pre-study. Our work contributes to theory, by presenting more insights into the interaction quality of conversational agents in the context of churn prevention of digital services and the role of persuasive design. We support practitioners, by guiding them towards more effective use of conversational agents to improve their services and to predict churn

Illusory ownership of a virtual child body causes overestimation of object sizes and implicit attitude changes

An illusory sensation of ownership over a surrogate limb or whole body can be induced through specific forms of multisensory stimulation, such as synchronous visuotactile tapping on the hidden real and visible rubber hand in the rubber hand illusion. Such methods have been used to induce ownership over a manikin and a virtual body that substitute the real body, as seen from firstperson perspective, through a head-mounted display. However, the perceptual and behavioral consequences of such transformed body ownership have hardly been explored. In Exp. 1, immersive virtual reality was used to embody 30 adults as a 4-y-old child (condition C), and as an adult body scaled to the same height as the child (condition A), experienced from the first-person perspective, and with virtual and real body movements synchronized. The result was a strong body-ownership illusion equally for C and A. Moreover there was an overestimation of the sizes of objects compared with a nonembodied baseline, which was significantly greater for C compared with A. An implicit association test showed that C resulted in significantly faster reaction times for the classification of self with child-like compared with adult-like attributes. Exp. 2 with an additional 16 participants extinguished the ownership illusion by using visuomotor asynchrony, with all else equal. The size-estimation and implicit association test differences between C and A were also extinguished. We conclude that there are perceptual and probably behavioral correlates of bodyownership illusions that occur as a function of the type of body in which embodiment occurs

The Sense of embodiment in virtual reality

What does it feel like to own, to control, and to be inside a body? The multidimensional nature of this experience together with the continuous presence of one's biological body, render both theoretical and experimental approaches problematic. Nevertheless, exploitation of immersive virtual reality has allowed a reframing of this question to whether it is possible to experience the same sensations towards a virtual body inside an immersive virtual environment as toward the biological body, and if so, to what extent. The current paper addresses these issues by referring to the Sense of Embodiment (SoE). Due to the conceptual confusion around this sense, we provide a working definition which states that SoE consists of three subcomponents: the sense of self-location, the sense of agency, and the sense of body ownership. Under this proposed structure, measures and experimental manipulations reported in the literature are reviewed and related challenges are outlined. Finally, future experimental studies are proposed to overcome those challenges, toward deepening the concept of SoE and enhancing it in virtual applications

A mobile virtual character with emotion-aware strategies for human-robot interaction

Emotions may play an important role in human-robot interaction, especially with social robots. Although the emotion recognition problem has been massively studied, few research is aimed at investigating interaction strategies produced as response to inferred emotional states. The work described in this paper consists on conceiving and evaluating a dynamic in which, according to the user emotional state inferred through facial expressions analysis, two distinct interaction strategies are associated to a virtual character. An Android app, whose development is in progress, aggregates the user interface and interactive features. We have performed user experiments to evaluate whether the proposed dynamic is effective in producing more natural and empathic interaction.FAPESP (São Paulo State Research Support Foundation) (grant 2014/16862-4

The Dilemma of Private Justice Systems: Big Data Sources, the Cloud and Predictive Analytics

Abstract: In the age of big data, demanding customer expectations, and increasingly limited access to justice for small claims arising from online sales, business organizations are moving to enhanced online customer complaint platforms and insisting upon increased online justice resolution systems. At the same time, online businesses, even websites you fail to think of as a business, are moving from traditional analytics that provide a snapshot of the past, to solutions that provide an accurate picture of the present and a prediction of future trends. For many, predictive analytics is the wave of the future. In many ways, the use of predictive analytics is a wonderful occurrence, as our packages will arrive in a more timely manner, our advertising will be more personal and our online and physical lives will be tailored, monitored and adjusted to our interests, life styles and immediate needs without so much as a hiccup. However, what will happen when the current push for private online dispute resolution systems meets the current big data gathering of a private market? Will the private online dispute resolution providers use the information gathered for good, or as a means to quickly resolve disputes without notice of the law, personal rights and/or ethical outcomes? Worse yet, what will happen when the private market of online dispute resolution faces the demands of a business environment that would prefer analytic outcomes to be skewed to favor the business? Bear in mind, these issues do not arise in a prediction, these private online dispute resolution mechanisms already exist and are growing in support and use on a daily basis. This paper will explore the emerging issue that occurs when private online dispute resolution providers are allowed, without transparency, oversight, or regulation, to create a justice system that knows a lot of personal information about you but is required to follow no legal standard or regulation to resolve your dispute with a merchant