Trustworthy Embodied Conversational Agents for Healthcare: A Design Exploration of Embodied Conversational Agents for the periconception period at Erasmus MC

This paper explores the potential implications of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in healthcare, focusing on the impact of appearance and conversation style on trustworthiness. We conducted a Research through Design investigation of ECAs for supporting women during the periconception period and in pregnancy. The paper presents the...

An embodied conversational agent coach to support societal participation learning by low-literate users

People of low literacy could benefit from automated support when learning about societal participation. We design an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) ‘coach’ that can provide effective learning support to low-literate learners, develop a prototype virtual learning environment, and evaluate this prototype with low-literate end users. First,...

Using scaffolding to formalize digital coach support for low-literate learners

In this study, we attempt to specify the cognitive support behavior of a previously designed embodied conversational agent coach that provides learning support to low-literates. Three knowledge gaps are identified in the existing work: an incomplete specification of the behaviors that make up ‘support,’ an incomplete specification of how this...

Design and Development of a Physical and a Virtual Embodied Conversational Agent for Social Support of Older Adults

Populations in developed societies show an increasingly higher life expectancy across the globe. To support older adults to live longer and healthier lives in the familiar surroundings of their homes, technological developments, such as robots and avatars, have a great potential. To investigate long-term interactions between older adults and a ...

Ontology Engineering for the Design and Implementation of Personal Pervasive Lifestyle Support

The PAL project1 is developing an embodied conversational agent (robot and its avatar), and applications for child-agent activities that help children from 8 to 14 years old to acquire the required knowledge, skills, and attitude for adequate diabetes selfmanagement. Formal and informal caregivers can use the PAL system to enhance their...

An Empathic Virtual Buddy for Social Support

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in employing Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) as companions or coaches. These roles are typically performed by humans and require exhibiting certain social behaviors, such as providing social support. For interactions between users and coaching or companion ECAs to become truly social,...

User Validation of an Empathic Virtual Buddy against Cyberbullying

People are able to comfort others by talking about their problems. In our research, we are exploring whether computers can provide social support in a similar manner. Recently, we proposed a design for an empathic virtual buddy that supports victims of cyberbullying. To validate our approach in providing social support and to gather feedback...