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. 2010 Jul 1;24(6):648-666.
doi: 10.1080/08839514.2010.492259.

Maintaining Engagement in Long-term Interventions with Relational Agents

Timothy Bickmore  1 , Daniel Schulman, Langxuan Yin
Affiliations

Maintaining Engagement in Long-term Interventions with Relational Agents

Timothy Bickmore et al. Appl Artif Intell. .

Abstract

We discuss issues in designing virtual humans for applications which require long-term voluntary use, and the problem of maintaining engagement with users over time. Concepts and theories related to engagement from a variety of disciplines are reviewed. We describe a platform for conducting studies into long-term interactions between humans and virtual agents, and present the results of two longitudinal randomized controlled experiments in which the effect of manipulations of agent behavior on user engagement was assessed.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Virtual Laboratory Exercise Counselor Agent
Figure 2
Figure 2
Plots of Measures Over Time by Study Group for Variability Study (Left plot: Repetitiveness. Middle plot: Desire to Continue. Right plot: Sessions)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effects of Study Day and Variability Condition on System Usage
Figure 4
Figure 4
Example Narrative Dialogue Showing the Same Story Fragments in 1ST-PERSON and 3RD-PERSON Conditions
Figure 5
Figure 5
Effects of Study Day and Story Condition on System Usage
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bickmore T, Caruso L, Clough-Gorr K, Heeren T. "It's just like you talk to a friend" - Relational Agents for Older Adults. Interacting with Computers. 2005;17(6):711–735.
    1. Bickmore T, Giorgino Toni. Health Dialog Systems for Patients and Consumers. J Biomedical Informatics. 2006;39(5):556–571. - PubMed
    1. Bickmore T, Schulman D. A Virtual Laboratory for Studying Long-term Relationships between Humans and Virtual Agents. Proceedings Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS); Budapest, Hungary. 2009. pp. 297–304.
    1. Bickmore T, Schulman D, Yin L. Engagement vs. Deceit: Virtual Humans with Human Autobiographies. Proceedings Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA); Amsterdam. 2009. pp. 6–19.
    1. Bickmore T. Ph.D. Dissertation, Media Arts & Sciences. Cambridge, MA, USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 2003. Relational Agents: Effecting Change through Human-Computer Relationships.

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