Integrating Planning and Dialogue in a Lifestyle Agent

Smith, Cameron; Cavazza, Marc; Charlton, Daniel; Zhang, Li; Turunen, Markku; Hakulinen, Jaakko

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-85483-8_15

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Besides research on robotics, there is a large corpus of literature on the application of virtual agents in other highly relevant domains from which we can draw inspiration. Although this review focuses solely on psychotherapeutic applications, there seems to be little reason not to consider, for example, motivational [ 9 ], pedagogical [ 76 ], or lifestyle-support agents [ 77 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Conversational Agents in Clinical Psychology: A Scoping Review

Provoost¹,

Lau²,

Ruwaard³

et al. 2017

J Med Internet Res

335

217

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundEmbodied conversational agents (ECAs) are computer-generated characters that simulate key properties of human face-to-face conversation, such as verbal and nonverbal behavior. In Internet-based eHealth interventions, ECAs may be used for the delivery of automated human support factors.ObjectiveWe aim to provide an overview of the technological and clinical possibilities, as well as the evidence base for ECA applications in clinical psychology, to inform health professionals about the activity in this field of research.MethodsGiven the large variety of applied methodologies, types of applications, and scientific disciplines involved in ECA research, we conducted a systematic scoping review. Scoping reviews aim to map key concepts and types of evidence underlying an area of research, and answer less-specific questions than traditional systematic reviews. Systematic searches for ECA applications in the treatment of mood, anxiety, psychotic, autism spectrum, and substance use disorders were conducted in databases in the fields of psychology and computer science, as well as in interdisciplinary databases. Studies were included if they conveyed primary research findings on an ECA application that targeted one of the disorders. We mapped each study’s background information, how the different disorders were addressed, how ECAs and users could interact with one another, methodological aspects, and the study’s aims and outcomes.ResultsThis study included N=54 publications (N=49 studies). More than half of the studies (n=26) focused on autism treatment, and ECAs were used most often for social skills training (n=23). Applications ranged from simple reinforcement of social behaviors through emotional expressions to sophisticated multimodal conversational systems. Most applications (n=43) were still in the development and piloting phase, that is, not yet ready for routine practice evaluation or application. Few studies conducted controlled research into clinical effects of ECAs, such as a reduction in symptom severity.ConclusionsECAs for mental disorders are emerging. State-of-the-art techniques, involving, for example, communication through natural language or nonverbal behavior, are increasingly being considered and adopted for psychotherapeutic interventions in ECA research with promising results. However, evidence on their clinical application remains scarce. At present, their value to clinical practice lies mostly in the experimental determination of critical human support factors. In the context of using ECAs as an adjunct to existing interventions with the aim of supporting users, important questions remain with regard to the personalization of ECAs’ interaction with users, and the optimal timing and manner of providing support. To increase the evidence base with regard to Internet interventions, we propose an additional focus on low-tech ECA solutions that can be rapidly developed, tested, and applied in routine practice.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Conversational Agents in Clinical Psychology: A Scoping Review

Provoost¹,

Lau²,

Ruwaard³

et al. 2017

J Med Internet Res

335

217

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Both HTNs [5] and dialogue trees [4] are very well known and commonly used techniques. HTNs have been used by others, such as Bohus and Rudnicky [3] or Smith, Cavazza et al [16], for generating dialogue, but the goal of these efforts has been to eliminate dialogue trees, rather than coexist with them, as we have. Orkin et al [9] have tried to eliminate manual dialogue authoring by applying data mining techniques to crowdsourced data to automatically create HTNs, which are then used to generate new dialogues.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Collaborative Discourse Theory to Partially Automate Dialogue Tree Authoring

Rich

Sidner

2012

Intelligent Virtual Agents

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We have developed a novel methodology combining hierarchical task networks with traditional dialogue trees that both partially automates dialogue authoring and improves the degree of dialogue structure reuse. The key to this methodology is a lightweight utterance semantics derived from collaborative discourse theory, making it a step towards dialogue generation based on cognitive models rather than manual authoring. We have implemented an open-source tool, called Disco for Games (D4g), to support the methodology and present a fully worked example of using this tool to generate a dialogue about baseball.

show abstract

“…The cognitive modelling of the Health and Fitness Companion is presented in detail by Hakulinen et al (2008);Cavazza et al (2008); Smith et al (2008); Turunen et al (2008a). Here, we focus in its interoperability with the dialogue management.…”

Section: Cognitive Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multimodal and mobile conversational Health and Fitness Companions

Turunen

Hakulinen

Ståhl

et al. 2011

Computer Speech & Language

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Multimodal conversational spoken dialogues using physical and virtual agents provide a potential interface to motivate and support users in the domain of health and fitness. In this paper we present how such multimodal conversational Companions can be implemented to support their owners in various pervasive and mobile settings. We present concrete system architectures, virtual, physical and mobile multimodal interfaces, and interaction management techniques for such companions. In particular, we present how knowledge representation and separation of low-level interaction modelling from high-level reasoning at the domain level makes it possible to implement distributed, but still coherent, interaction with Companions. The distribution is enabled by using a dialogue plan to communicate information from domain level planner to dialogue management and from there to a separate mobile interface. The model enables each part of the system to handle the same information from its own perspective without containing overlapping * Corresponding author Email addresses: mturunen@cs.uta.fi (Markku Turunen), jh@cs.uta.fi (Jaakko Hakulinen), olovs@sics.se (Olov Ståhl), gamback@sics.se (Björn Gambäck), preben@sics.se (Preben Hansen), mcrg@tid.es (Mari C. Rodríguez Gancedo), e.rsai@tid.es (Raúl Santos de la Cámara), c.g.smith@tees.ac.uk 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 logic, and makes it possible to separate task-specific and conversational dialogue management from each other. In addition to technical descriptions, we present results from the first evaluations of the Companions interfaces.

show abstract

Integrating Planning and Dialogue in a Lifestyle Agent

Cited by 12 publications

References 8 publications

Embodied Conversational Agents in Clinical Psychology: A Scoping Review

Embodied Conversational Agents in Clinical Psychology: A Scoping Review

Using Collaborative Discourse Theory to Partially Automate Dialogue Tree Authoring

Multimodal and mobile conversational Health and Fitness Companions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About