A Therapy System for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Using a Virtual Agent and Virtual Storytelling to Reconstruct Traumatic Memories

Although post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is well treatable, many people do not get the desired treatment due to barriers to care (such as stigma and cost). This paper presents a system that bridges this gap by enabling patients to follow therapy at home. A therapist is only involved remotely, to monitor progress and serve as a safety...

A Virtual Agent for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder with a high impact on quality of life, and despite the existence of treatment, barriers still stop many people from receiving the care they need. An e-mental health system for home use might remove some of these barriers, as it provides a privacy-sensitive and accessible way of following...

Just the right mood for HIT!: Analyzing the role of worker moods in conversational microtask crowdsourcing

Conversational agents are playing an increasingly important role in providing users with natural communication environments, improving outcomes in a variety of domains in human-computer interaction. Crowdsourcing marketplaces are simultaneously flourishing, and it has never been easier to acquire large-scale human input from online workers....

TickTalkTurk: Conversational crowdsourcing made easy

This demo presents TickTalkTurk, a tool that can assist task requesters in quickly deploying crowdsourcing tasks in a customizable conversational worker interface. The conversational worker interface can convey task instructions, deploy microtasks, and gather worker input in a dialogue-based workflow. The interface is implemented as a Web...

Reinforcement Learning-Based Persuasion by a Conversational Agent for Behavior Change

Adaptive Data-Driven Persuasive Communication for a Conversational Agent to Support Behavior Change

A human therapist continuously adapts how they persuade a client to adhere to a behavior change intervention based on theoretical expertise, past experience with the client as well as other clients, and the client's current situation. We aim at incorporating these elements into the persuasive communication of a conversational agent that acts as...

Reinforcement Learning-Based Persuasion by a Conversational Agent for Behavior Change

Short and long-term innovations on dietary behavior assessment and coaching: Present efforts and vision of the pride and prejudice consortium

Overweight, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases are major global health concerns. Lifestyle factors, including diet, have been acknowledged to play a key role in the solution of these health risks. However, as shown by numerous studies, and in clinical practice, it is extremely challenging to quantify dietary behaviors as well as influencing...

Conversational Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has become a standard approach for the collection of the human input required by scientists and practitioners alike to execute their experiments, or to train, control, and verify the behavior of their intelligent systems. Despite years of successful research and industrial application, how to improve the engagement and satisfaction...

Reusable Virtual Coach for Smoking Cessation and Physical Activity Coaching

Smoking tobacco and physical inactivity are key preventable behavioural risk factors of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Computerised coaching systems can help individuals to modify risky behaviours, thereby preventing CVD. However, most reported eHealth or computerized coaching systems are hard to reuse in slightly different settings. To provide...

Users’ needs for a digital smoking cessation application and how to address them: A mixed-methods study

Background<br/>Despite their increasing prevalence and potential, eHealth applications for behavior change suffer from a lack of adherence and from dropout. Advances in virtual coach technology provide new opportunities to improve this. However, these applications still do not always offer what people need. We, therefore, need a better...

Using a Virtual Coach to Quit Smoking: 14 Themes for User Needs

Great Chain of Agents: The Role of Metaphorical Representation of Agents in Conversational Crowdsourcing

Conversational agents are being widely adopted across several domains to serve a variety of purposes ranging from providing intelligent assistance to companionship. Recent literature has shown that users develop intuitive folk theories and a metaphorical understanding of conversational agents (CAs) due to the lack of a mental model of the...

Setting Physical Activity Goals with a Virtual Coach: Vicarious Experiences, Personalization and Acceptance

Goal-setting is often used in eHealth applications for behavior change as it motivates and helps to stay focused on a desired outcome. However, for goals to be effective, they need to meet criteria such as being specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). Moreover, people need to be confident to reach their goal. We thus...

“So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative...

Effectiveness of User States, Demographics and Traits in Persuading to Quit Smoking

This document is an encore abstract of the paper “Persuading to Prepare for Quitting Smoking with a Virtual Coach: Using States and User Characteristics to Predict Behavior” presented at AAMAS 2023.

Attitudes Toward a Virtual Smoking Cessation Coach: Relationship and Willingness to Continue

Virtual coaches have the potential to address the low adherence common to eHealth applications for behavior change by, for example, providing motivational support. However, given the multitude of factors affecting users’ attitudes toward virtual coaches, more insights are needed on how such virtual coaches can be designed to affect these...

Collaboratively Setting Daily Step Goals with a Virtual Coach: Using Reinforcement Learning to Personalize Initial Proposals

Goal-setting is commonly used in behavior change applications for physical activity. However, for goals to be effective, they need to be tailored to a user’s situation (e.g., motivation, progress). One way to obtain such goals is a collaborative process in which a healthcare professional and client set a goal together, thus making use of the...