| Building Character for Artificial Conversational Agents: Ethos, Ethics, Believability, and Credibility | | BIBAK | 1 | 9-47 | |
| Sheryl Brahnam | |||
| Because ethos is an unavoidable component of dialogue and forms the basis
for believing and being persuaded by another's speech, it is an important topic
for AI researchers. This paper examines the concept of ethos, especially
Aristotle's notions of situated and invented ethos, as it functions in oral and
written discourse and then explores what happens to ethos in computer-mediated
human-to-human and human-to-machine discourse. The paper draws a number of
conclusions that may be of value to researchers in these fields. In particular,
it argues that the rhetorical concept of ethos furnishes a broader theoretical
framework for understanding design and ethical issues involved in agent
credibility than does the artistic notion of believability. The paper concludes
by suggesting some nonartistic methods for making agents more credible within
the framework of situated ethos. Keywords: ethos, conversational agents, believability, trust, anthropomorphism, Eliza
effect, verbal abuse, computer-mediated communication, transference,
oscillation effect | |||
| Ethical implications of verbal disinhibition with conversational agents | | BIBAK | 2 | 49-57 | |
| Antonella De Angeli | |||
| This paper presents a reflection on the ethical implications of
conversational agents. The reflection is motivated by recent empirical findings
showing that, when interacting in natural language with artificial partners,
users tend to indulge in disinhibited behaviour, such as flaming, bullying and
sexual harassment. The paper then addresses the question whether conversational
agents open any ethical issues and whether this new communication context
requires the definition of new moral values and principles or could be
addressed by ordinary moral norms. Keywords: embodied conversational agents, Internet disinhibition, verbal abuse | |||
| Witnessed Presence and the YUTPA Framework | | BIBAK | 3 | 59-76 | |
| Caroline Nevejan | |||
| This paper introduces the notion of witnessed presence arguing that the
performative act of witnessing presence is fundamental to dynamics of
negotiating trust and truth. As the agency of witnessed presence in mediated
presence differs from natural presence orchestration between natural and
mediated presences is needed. The YUTPA framework, introduced in this paper,
depicts 4 dimensions to define witnessed presence: time, place, action and
relation. This framework also provides a context for design of trust in
products and services, as illustrated for a number of illustrative scenarios. Keywords: witnessed presence, time, place, action, relation, YUTPA, responsibility,
social structures, performitivity, ethics, emotions, design | |||
| Cybertherapy: Advantages, Limitations, and Ethical Issues | | BIBAK | 4 | 77-100 | |
| Cristina Botella; Azucena Garcia-Palacios; Rosa M. Baños; Soledad Quero | |||
| Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are becoming more and more
common in Clinical Psychology. Two of the technologies that are more
consolidated in this field are virtual reality (VR) and telepsychology. There
are other technological innovations that are beginning to be used in clinical
and health psychology such as ambient intelligence, ubiquitous computing or
persuasive computing. In the last fifteen years there has been a proliferation
of studies testing the efficacy of immersive virtual reality in the delivery of
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for several mental disorders and health
conditions. The essence of VR is that it can simulate reality and add a new
possibility: the user has the illusion of "being" in the computer-generated
environment while interacting with the VR objects. This unique feature of VR is
very relevant for its use in Clinical Psychology. At the same time, it can
raise several ethical issues. It is important to investigate the possible
effects of blurring the distinction between real and virtual worlds in
vulnerable populations. Some other concerns regarding the use of VR in therapy
have already been investigated, such as cybersickness. After ten years of
experience treating patients with VR, this has not been a problem in the
published efficacy studies.
Telepsychology has also been used to improve the delivery of CBT. A number of Internet-delivered programs have already become important tools in the health system. The main advantage is that online therapy can reach people who might not otherwise seek therapy, such as disabled people or those who live in remote areas. However, several concerns have been raised about self-help procedures, like the issue of self-diagnosis. and the fact that patients usually have all of the necessary self-help information at their disposal. It is important to establish criteria to protect people from the possible negative effects of this. Other innovations such as ambient intelligence and pervasive computing bring up other ethical issues. For example, is privacy being compromised too much when people are located using GPS or physiologically monitored 24 hours a day? Criteria for considering these issues must be established. Our research group has been working with new technologies and therapies for the last fifteen years. This paper addresses the ethical issues we have encountered in our research and clinical practice; it also explores ethical issues that will become increasingly important. Keywords: cybertherapy, virtual reality, telepsychology, e-therapy, pervasive
computing, ethics | |||
| Telepresence and Video Games: The Impact of Image Quality | | BIBAK | 5 | 101-112 | |
| Cheryl Campanella Bracken; Paul Skalski | |||
| This study investigates the impact of video game image quality on
telepresence. Past research has demonstrated positive associations between
television image quality and presence and video game technology and presence.
No study to date, however, has examined the presence effects of video games
played in high definition, which is becoming increasingly common due to the
diffusion of new TV technologies into homes. This paper reports the results of
an experiment in which image quality was manipulated. The results of the study
provide some support for image quality affecting telepresence. Specifically,
higher quality images in video games led to higher levels of immersion. These
findings are discussed along with suggestions for future research. Keywords: Video Games, Telepresence, Presence, HD games | |||
| What could abductive reasoning contribute to human computer interaction? A technology domestication view | | BIBAK | 6 | 113-131 | |
| Erkki Patokorpi | |||
| In recent decades, non-monotonous, informal patterns of reasoning have
awakened a renewed interest among psychologists, economists and
educationalists. Computer scientists and information systems professionals
could also benefit from getting better acquainted with new research on how
people think and act in the real world. The purpose of the paper is not to make
an empirical contribution but to present a general argument in favour of a
psychological approach to logic and its application to Human Computer
Interaction (HCI), focusing especially on abduction. Abduction is a form of
everyday reasoning that people typically use under uncertainty in a context.
Abduction may help us better understand the epistemic conditions of advanced
HCI -- which increasingly takes place in authentic surroundings instead of in a
laboratory-like setting -- thus contributing to better research and design. HCI
design should enhance our natural capacities and behaviour, which at the same
time could mean creating new freedoms in the structures of everyday life. Keywords: abduction, practical reasoning, informal reasoning, logic of discovery,
information systems methodology, human-computer interaction, technology design | |||
| Predicting preference from fixations | | BIBAK | 7 | 141-158 | |
| Mackenzie G. Glaholt; Mei-Chun Wu; Eyal M. Reingold | |||
| We measured the strength of the association between looking behaviour and
preference. Participants selected the most preferred face out of a grid of 8
faces. Fixation times were correlated with selection on a trial-by-trial basis,
as well as with explicit preference ratings. Furthermore, by ranking features
based on fixation times, we were able to successfully predict participants'
preferences for novel feature combinations in a two-alternative forced choice
task. In addition, we obtained a similar pattern of findings in a very
different stimulus domain: mock company logos. Our results indicated that
fixation times can be used to predict selection in large arrays and they might
also be employed to estimate preferences for whole stimuli as well as their
constituent features. Keywords: Eye movements, preference, gaze bias, decision making | |||
| Scrollable Keyboards for Casual Eye Typing | | BIBAK | 8 | 159-173 | |
| Oleg Spakov; Päivi Majaranta | |||
| In eye typing, a full on-screen keyboard often takes a lot of space because
the inaccuracy in eye tracking requires big keys. We propose "scrollable
keyboards" where one or more rows are hidden to save space. Results from an
experiment with 8 expert participants show that the typing speed reduced by
51.4% for a 1-row keyboard and 25.3% for a 2-row keyboard compared to a full
(3-row) QWERTY. By optimizing the keyboard layout according to letter-to-letter
probabilities we were able to reduce the scroll button usage, which further
increased the typing speed from 7.26 wpm (QWERTY) to 8.86 wpm (optimized
layout) on the 1-row keyboard, and from 11.17 wpm to 12.18 wpm on the 2-row
keyboard, respectively. Keywords: Eye typing, text entry, eye tracking, gaze input | |||
| Hands Free Interaction with Virtual Information in a Real Environment: Eye Gaze as an Interaction Tool in an Augmented Reality System | | BIBAK | 9 | 175-196 | |
| Susanna Nilsson; Torbjörn Gustafsson; Per Carleberg | |||
| Eye contact in human conversations is a natural source of information about
the visual attention of people talking, and also indicates who is speaking to
whom. Eye gaze can be used as an interaction method, but gaze tracking can also
be used to monitor a user's eye movements and visual interest. This paper
describes how gaze-based interaction can be used and implemented in an
Augmented Reality (AR) system. The results of the preliminary tests of the
gaze-controlled AR system show that the system does work, but that it needs
considerable development and further user studies before it can be a realistic
option in real end user settings. Keywords: Augmented Reality, gaze-controlled augmented reality, mixed reality,
gaze-based interaction | |||
| Gaze beats mouse: A case study on a gaze-controlled breakout | | BIBAK | 10 | 197-211 | |
| Michael Dorr; Laura Pomarjanschi; Erhardt Barth | |||
| We present an open-source, gaze-controlled adaptation of the well-known
Breakout computer game. In a tournament where 20 subjects took turns playing
this game against each other, one using gaze and one using a mouse, we
demonstrate that gaze can be a superior input modality. In another experiment,
we collected eye movement data from 9 subjects playing this game and find that
expert and novice players differ in their employed eye movement strategies. Keywords: Gaming with gaze, human-computer interaction, alternative input devices | |||
| Evaluation of the Potential of Gaze Input for Game Interaction | | BIBAK | 11 | 213-236 | |
| Javier San Agustin; Julio C. Mateo; John Paulin Hansen; Arantxa Villanueva | |||
| To evaluate the potential of gaze input for game interaction, we used two
tasks commonly found in video game control, target acquisition and target
tracking, in a set of two experiments. In the first experiment, we compared the
target acquisition and target tracking performance of two eye trackers with
four other input devices. Gaze input had a similar performance to the mouse for
big targets, and better performance than a joystick, a device often used in
gaming. In the second experiment, we compared target acquisition performance
using either gaze or mouse for pointing, and either a mouse button or an EMG
switch for clicking. The hands-free gaze-EMG input combination was faster than
the mouse while maintaining a similar error rate. Our results suggest that
there is a potential for gaze input in game interaction, given a sufficiently
accurate and responsive eye tracker and a well-designed interface. Keywords: Gaze input, video games, electromyography, pointing devices, performance
evaluation, Fitts' Law, human-computer interaction | |||
| Fast, low resource, head detection and tracking for interactive applications | | BIBAK | 12 | 243-264 | |
| Matthieu Perreira Da Silva; Vincent Courboulay; Armelle Prigent; Pascal Estraillier | |||
| This paper presents a real time, low resource, head tracking system. This
system is used for a broad range of applications, the simplest being the
control of a car in an arcade racing game. Another use of this system is the
improvement of the gameplay of an adventure game. A more advanced application
is the detection of the player's attentional state using a simple attention
model in an attention aware game framework. This state is then used to adapt
the game unfolding in order to enhance user's experience and improve the game
attentional attractiveness. The experiments conducted on these different games
showed that even if using head as a simple input device for explicit game
control can improve the player's immersion, its full potential can only be
exploited when adapting or building new gameplay. Keywords: Head-based interaction, gameplay, low resource, low cost, head tracking | |||
| Designing Effective Feedback of Electricity Consumption for Mobile User Interfaces | | BIBAK | 13 | 265-289 | |
| Giulio Jacucci; Anna Spagnolli; Luciano Gamberini; Alessandro Chalambalakis; Christoffer Björksog; Massimo Bertoncini; Carin Torstensson; Pasquale Monti | |||
| This paper illustrates the approach of Energy Life, a pervasive household
sensoring and feedbacking system aimed at improving the energy conservation
practices of the inhabitants. The concept of EnergyLife takes into account
state-of-the-art knowledge of what makes a feedback intervention effective,
which -- at this stage of its development -- can be synthesized into two main
features. First, knowledge and action are to be synergically addressed by
visualizing electricity consumption on the one side, and providing conservation
tips on the other. Second, the design should be centered on the users and
undergo iterative usability tests. A more detailed description of the
literature-based requirements informing the design of EnergyLife is offered at
the beginning of the paper. The way in which they are embodied in the features
of the mobile interface, epitomized by its intuitive 3D carousel, is then
described. Finally, the rationale and results of the first usability evaluation
are reported, describing the responses to a satisfaction questionnaire and the
types of breakdowns that occurred during the users' interaction with the
device. These results will guide the next development phase and the release of
a new prototype. Keywords: energy awareness, feedback, mobile interface, breakdown analysis | |||
| The increase of the experiences of the self through the practice of multiple virtual identities | | BIBAK | 14 | 291-302 | |
| José Carlos Ribeiro | |||
| This paper proposes some reflections concerning the process of creation of
multiple virtual identities usually verified in several online social platforms
of informal interaction based on textual/synchronous modality. With this
intention, it discusses characterization, exploratory possibilities (personal
and social-communicative) and reasons which lead users to execute such
practice. In addition, it intends to identify possible relations between this
procedure and the promotion of a dynamics of relationships distinguished in
these computer-mediated communication environments. From this point of view, it
defends the idea that there is a favourable context to the exercise of
simultaneous social roles, decentred and not hierarchical, associated to more
flexible identity constructions and more adjusted to contemporary society
settings. Keywords: Cyberspace, social interaction, virtual identity | |||
| Usability studies: to meet or not to meet intrinsic motivation | | BIBAK | 15 | 303-324 | |
| Olga V. Smyslova; Alexander E. Voiskounsky | |||
| Controlling the users' motivation can significantly improve the efficiency
and prognostic value of usability studies. The distinction between the
extrinsic and intrinsic motivation plays a decisive role in computer-related
activities. A well-developed theory of flow experience, introduced by M.
Csikszentmihalyi within the school of positive psychology, is intimately
related to intrinsic motivation. Researchers intensively explore flow
experience in various types of human-computer interaction. The authors' earlier
results referring to computer hackers' motivation are discussed, and the model
of hackers' motivational development is presented. These findings suggest
productive hints on software users' motivational development, and can be
applied in usability studies. Longitudinal usability research projects prove to
be reliable in acquiring information about long-term use of newly-developed or
updated software products. Specifically, longitudinal research projects would
benefit, if the Experience Sampling Method is used. Methodology is discussed,
aimed at development of software products which facilitate users' flow
experience, and possibly long-term use of these products. Keywords: usability, software development, motivation, intrinsic motivation, emotion,
longitudinal study, flow experience, hackers' motivation, experience sampling
method | |||