Seniors’ Acceptance of Virtual Humanoid Agents

Abstract

This paper reports on a study conducted as part of the EU EMPATHIC project, whose goal is to develop an empathic virtual coach capable of enhancing seniors' well-being, focusing on user requirements and expectations with respect to participants' age and technology experiences (i.e. participants' familiarity with technological devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets). The data shows that seniors' favorite technological device is the smartphone, and this device was also the one that scored the highest in terms of easiness to use. We found statistically significant differences on the preferences expressed by seniors toward the gender of the agents. Seniors (independently from their gender) prefer to interact with female humanoid agents on both the pragmatic and hedonic dimensions of an interactive system and are more in favor to commit themselves in a long-lasting interaction with them. In addition, we found statistically significant effects of the seniors' technology savviness on the hedonic qualities of the proposed interactive systems. Seniors with technological experience felt less motivated and judged the proposed agents less captivating, exciting, and appealing.

The EMPATHIC project

“…Next we exported the model and animation using 3Dxchange into the FBX format. Then, we imported the FBX file as a new resource into Unity3D 7 . The transition from iClone to unity degrades the appearance of the model.…”

“…These aspects were accounted for in a subsequent experiment, conducted again in Italy [7], but this time with agents created with BOTLIBRE 13 . Also these agents, which were selected by 3 experts, showed half their torso, with definite clothing.…”

The Dependability of Voice on Elders’ Acceptance of Humanoid Agents

“…Four virtual agents selected from the website BOTLIBRE (www.botlibre.com) by three experts were defined and exploited in the experiments. For a detailed description of the selection procedure please refer to [7].…”

“…An ad hoc questionnaire VAAQ (Virtual Agent Acceptance Questionnaire) described in [7] was developed to explore participants' satisfaction in interacting with virtual agents. The questionnaire aims to provide hints on agent's perception and technology acceptance degrees among users relatively to diverse agents, with special regard to agent's gender and voice.…”

“…Advances in research and technology have brought about the possibility of humanoid virtual agents becoming part of everyday living, founding applications in several areas of human activity. They are being used as trainer [1,2]; automated coach [3], museum guide [4], touristic assistant [5], companion or assistant for seniors [6,7], customer assistant in e-commerce [8], in videogame [9], and in many different ICT (Information Communication Technologies) applications devoted to social services.…”