Virtual assistive companions for older adults: qualitative field study and design implications

This paper presents a qualitative study conducted to explore perceptions, attitudes and expectations for a virtual assistive companion designed to supplement human caregiving and facilitate an improved quality of life and long-term health benefits for older adults. The study was conducted adopting a human-centred approach; employing focus groups and individual interviews with older adults, professional caregivers and psychologists specialized in the aging process. Results indicated that users were in favour of a virtual companion and highlighted its potential to assist the accomplishment of daily activities and make more efficient use of human care services. Humanlike communication and behaviour were desirable whereas mixed opinions were expressed about humanlike appearance. The ramifications of the study are discussed in the form of design implications for the development of a virtual assistive companion that possesses the appropriate "social skills" to establish and maintain comfortable and acceptable long-term interaction and offers "useful" support to older adults.

[1]  J. Cassell,et al.  More Than Just Another Pretty Face: Embodied Conversational Interface Agents , 1999 .

[2]  Earl R. Babbie,et al.  The practice of social research , 1969 .

[3]  Jonathan Klein,et al.  This computer responds to user frustration , 1999, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[4]  K. Peters,et al.  The Handbook of Health Behavior Change , 2009 .

[5]  Heloir,et al.  The Uncanny Valley , 2019, The Animation Studies Reader.

[6]  Youngme Moon,et al.  This Computer Responds to User Frustration Theory, Design, Results, and Implications , 2002 .

[7]  Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann,et al.  Toward socially responsible agents: integrating attachment and learning in emotional decision‐making , 2013, Comput. Animat. Virtual Worlds.

[8]  Timothy W. Bickmore,et al.  'It's just like you talk to a friend' relational agents for older adults , 2005, Interact. Comput..

[9]  Timothy W. Bickmore,et al.  Addressing Loneliness and Isolation in Older Adults: Proactive Affective Agents Provide Better Support , 2013, 2013 Humaine Association Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction.

[10]  Ben J. A. Kröse,et al.  Assessing Acceptance of Assistive Social Agent Technology by Older Adults: the Almere Model , 2010, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[11]  J. Horn.  The Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence in Relation to Concepts of Cognitive Psychology and Aging in Adulthood , 1982 .

[12]  M. den Uyl,et al.  The FaceReader: Online facial expression recognition , 2006 .

[13]  T. Bickmore,et al.  A Randomized Controlled Trial of an Automated Exercise Coach for Older Adults , 2013, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

[14]  Timothy W. Bickmore,et al.  Designing Relational Agents as Long Term Social Companions for Older Adults , 2012, IVA.

[15]  Alexiei Dingli,et al.  The senior companion multiagent dialogue system , 2008, AAMAS.

[16]  Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann,et al.  Making Them Remember—Emotional Virtual Characters with Memory , 2009, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[17]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Roles and functions of robots in human society: implications from research in autism therapy , 2003, Robotica.

[18]  M. Dimatteo,et al.  The therapeutic effects of the physician-older patient relationship: Effective communication with vulnerable older patients , 2007, Clinical interventions in aging.

[19]  Justine Cassell,et al.  Embodied conversational interface agents , 2000, CACM.

[20]  Veikko Surakka,et al.  The effects of affective interventions in human-computer interaction , 2004, Interact. Comput..

[21]  Timothy W. Bickmore,et al.  MAINTAINING ENGAGEMENT IN LONG-TERM INTERVENTIONS WITH RELATIONAL AGENTS , 2010, Appl. Artif. Intell..

[22]  T. Bickmore.  Relational agents : effecting change through human-computer relationships , 2003 .

[23]  Anton Nijholt,et al.  Disappearing computers, social actors and embodied agents , 2003, Proceedings. 2003 International Conference on Cyberworlds.

[24]  L. Taft.  Self‐esteem in later life: a nursing perspective , 1985, ANS. Advances in nursing science.

[25]  Timothy W. Bickmore,et al.  Establishing and maintaining long-term human-computer relationships , 2005, TCHI.

[26]  Martha E. Pollack,et al.  Intelligent Technology for an Aging Population: The Use of AI to Assist Elders with Cognitive Impairment , 2005, AI Mag..

[27]  Rosalind W. Picard,et al.  Establishing the computer-patient working alliance in automated health behavior change interventions. , 2005, Patient education and counseling.

[28]  Timothy W. Bickmore,et al.  A virtual laboratory for studying long-term relationships between humans and virtual agents , 2009, AAMAS.

[29]  Timothy W. Bickmore.  Ethical Issues in Using Relational Agents for Older Adults , 2005, AAAI Fall Symposium: Caring Machines.

[30]  Mark Grimshaw,et al.  Relational agents: A critical review , 2009 .

[31]  K. Riekert,et al.  The handbook of health behavior change , 2013 .

[32]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot interaction , 2007, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.