Discourse Behavior of Older Adults Interacting with a Dialogue Agent Competent in Multiple Topics

Abstract

We present a conversational agent designed to provide realistic conversational practice to older adults at risk of isolation or social anxiety, and show the results of a content analysis on a corpus of data collected from experiments with elderly patients interacting with our system. The conversational agent, represented by a virtual avatar, is designed to hold multiple sessions of casual conversation with older adults. Throughout each interaction, the system analyzes the prosodic and nonverbal behavior of users and provides feedback to the user in the form of periodic comments and suggestions on how to improve. Our avatar is unique in its ability to hold natural dialogues on a wide range of everyday topics – 27 topics in three groups, developed in collaboration with a team of gerontologists. The three groups vary in “degrees of intimacy”, and as such in degrees of cognitive difficulty for the user. After collecting data from 9 participants who interacted with the avatar for 7-9 sessions over a period of 3-4 weeks, we present results concerning dialogue behavior and inferred sentiment of the users. Analysis of the dialogues reveals correlations such as greater elaborateness for more difficult topics, increasing elaborateness with successive sessions, stronger sentiments in topics concerned with life goals rather than routine activities, and stronger self-disclosure for more intimate topics. In addition to their intrinsic interest, these results also reflect positively on the sophistication and practical applicability of our dialogue system.

Reducing Loneliness and Social Isolation of Older Adults Through Voice Assistants: Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

“…The remaining articles involve a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 109 older adults. Among the selected articles, the age of the population varies widely, including people aged >50 [ 22 , 24 , 26 , 30 ], >60 [ 23 , 33 ], >65 [ 27 , 29 ], and >75 years [ 28 ]. Naturally, professionals are younger, ranging from 21 [ 29 ] to 33 [ 36 ] years.…”

“…In addition, 25% (4/16) of the articles consider participants’ familiarity with technology, involving only people with no experience with VA technology [ 26 ] and digital devices [ 31 ], involving only people with low technology use [ 32 ], or specifying people’s technological abilities [ 27 ]. In addition, some studies consider clinical conditions: 6% (1/16) of the articles [ 22 ] included people with diabetes or long-term health conditions, whereas others include people with postacute COVID-19 syndrome [ 24 ]; with normative cognitive functioning [ 28 ]; with no severe visual or hearing impairment and no moderate to severe cognitive impairment [ 30 ]; with mild difficulties in social skills, depression and anxiety symptoms, and nonverbal impairment [ 33 ]; and without dementia [ 36 ].…”

“…A total of 13% (2/16) of the articles [ 31 , 32 ] describe the design and the testing of a new VA-based digital intelligent platform. Finally, 1 (6%) article [ 33 ] presents a web-based automated version of a VA designed to improve communication skills, whereas another one [ 37 ] involves a personalized and expressive VA.…”

“…The environment in most of the articles [ 22 , 24 , 25 , 29 - 31 , 33 , 37 ] is the home, which is alternated, in the study by Pradhan et al [ 32 ], with the older adult living community and, in the studies by Bravo et al [ 23 ] and Simpson et al [ 35 ], with the retirement home. Instead, the environments in other articles are the laboratory [ 26 , 27 ], the independent living facility [ 28 ], the older adult care center [ 34 ], and the day-care facility [ 36 ].…”

“…Qualitative studies include 1 (6%) service evaluation [ 22 ], 1 (6%) evaluation test [ 29 ], and 1 (6%) pre- post study [ 32 ]. Then, there are 5 (31%) mixed studies, including both qualitative and quantitative methods, of which 1 (6%) is an evaluation test [ 27 ], 1 (6%) is a single-group quasi-experimental study [ 28 ], 1 (6%) is a pre-post study [ 30 ], 1 (6%) is a randomized controlled trial [ 33 ], and 1 (6%) was a usability study [ 36 ]. Finally, the remaining studies include 1 (6%) mini review [ 25 ], 2 (13%) conference speeches [ 35 , 37 ], and 1 (6%) study protocol [ 31 ].…”