TY - GEN
T1 - Mood mirroring with an embodied virtual agent
T2 - 16th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents, Multi-Agent Systems, PAAMS 2018
AU - Provoost, Simon
AU - Ruwaard, Jeroen
AU - Neijenhuijs, Koen
AU - Bosse, Tibor
AU - Riper, Heleen
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Human support is thought to increase adherence to internet-based interventions for common mental health disorders, but can be costly and reduce treatment accessibility. Embodied virtual agents may be used to deliver automated support, but while many solutions have been shown to be feasible, there is still little controlled research that empirically validates their clinical effectiveness in this context. This study uses a controlled and randomized paradigm to investigate whether feedback from an embodied virtual agent can increase adherence. In a three-week ecological momentary assessment smartphone study, 68 participants were asked to report their mood three times a day. An embodied virtual agent could mirror participant-reported mood states when thanking them for their answers. A two-stage randomization into a text and personalized visual feedback group, versus a text-only control group, was applied to control for individual differences (study onset) and feedback history (after two weeks). Results indicate that while personalized visual feedback did not increase adherence, it did manage to keep adherence constant over a three-week period, whereas fluctuations in adherence could be observed in the text-only control group. Although this was a pilot study, and its results should be interpreted with some caution, this paper shows how virtual agent feedback may have a stabilizing effect on adherence, how controlled experiments on the relationship between virtual agent support and clinically relevant measures such as adherence can be conducted, and how results may be analyzed.
AB - Human support is thought to increase adherence to internet-based interventions for common mental health disorders, but can be costly and reduce treatment accessibility. Embodied virtual agents may be used to deliver automated support, but while many solutions have been shown to be feasible, there is still little controlled research that empirically validates their clinical effectiveness in this context. This study uses a controlled and randomized paradigm to investigate whether feedback from an embodied virtual agent can increase adherence. In a three-week ecological momentary assessment smartphone study, 68 participants were asked to report their mood three times a day. An embodied virtual agent could mirror participant-reported mood states when thanking them for their answers. A two-stage randomization into a text and personalized visual feedback group, versus a text-only control group, was applied to control for individual differences (study onset) and feedback history (after two weeks). Results indicate that while personalized visual feedback did not increase adherence, it did manage to keep adherence constant over a three-week period, whereas fluctuations in adherence could be observed in the text-only control group. Although this was a pilot study, and its results should be interpreted with some caution, this paper shows how virtual agent feedback may have a stabilizing effect on adherence, how controlled experiments on the relationship between virtual agent support and clinically relevant measures such as adherence can be conducted, and how results may be analyzed.
KW - Adherence
KW - Ecological momentary assessment
KW - Feedback
KW - Virtual agent
UR - https://rd.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-94779-2
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049365026&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85049365026&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94779-2_3
DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94779-2_3
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 9783319947785
VL - [2]
T3 - Communications in Computer and Information Science
SP - 24
EP - 35
BT - Highlights of practical applications of agents, multi-agent systems, and complexity: The PAAMS collection
A2 - Bajo, Javier
A2 - Corchado, Juan M.
A2 - Julian, Vicente
A2 - Osaba Icedo, Eneko
A2 - Hoffa-Dabrowska, Patrycja
A2 - Silveira, Ricardo Azambuja
A2 - Fernandez, Alberto
A2 - Giroux, Sylvain
A2 - Navarro Martínez, Elena María
A2 - Mathieu, Philippe
A2 - Castro, Antonio J.
A2 - Sanchez-Pi, Nayat
A2 - del Val, Elena
A2 - Unland, Rainer
A2 - Fuentes-Fernandez, Ruben
PB - Springer/Verlag
Y2 - 20 June 2018 through 22 June 2018
ER -