Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Embodied Virtual Agents as a Means to Foster E-Inclusion of Older People

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
A Multimodal End-2-End Approach to Accessible Computing

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

  • 557 Accesses

Abstract

How can Embodied Virtual Agents (EVAs, often misleadingly called “avatars”) facilitate access to modern information and communication technologies for older people? Several studies and theoretical considerations point out their strong potential benefits, as well as their pitfalls and limitations. This chapter provides a survey of current studies, technologies, and applications, and shall provide guidance as to when and how to employ an EVA for the benefit of older adults. The reviewed studies encompass robotics, EVAs, and specific questions regarding the e-inclusion of the target user group.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267–299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Argyle, M., Trower, P., & Kristal, L. (1979). Person to person: Ways of communicating. London: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bailenson, J. N., & Blascovich, J. (2004). Avatars. In Encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. Great Barrington: Berkshire Publishing Group.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Barberis, D., Garazzino, N., Prinetto, P., & Tiotto, G. (2011). Improving accessibility for deaf people: An editor for computer assisted translation through virtual avatars. In The proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility (pp. 253–254). New York: ACM.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Barefoot, J. C., Maynard, K. E., Beckham, J. C., Brummett, B. H., Hooker, K., & Siegler, I. C. (1998). Trust, health, and longevity. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21(6), 517–526.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bartneck, C. (2003). Interacting with an embodied emotional character. In Proceedings of the 2003 international conference on designing pleasurable products and interfaces (pp. 55–60). New York: ACM.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Bates, J. (1994). The role of emotion in believable agents. Communications of the ACM, 37(7), 122–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Baylor, A. L., & Ryu, J. (2003). The effects of image and animation in enhancing pedagogical agent persona. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 28(4), 373–394.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Beale, R., & Creed, C. (2009). Affective interaction: How emotional agents affect users. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 67(9), 755–776.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Beck, A. M., & Meyers, N. M. (1996). Health enhancement and companion animal ownership. Annual Review of Public Health, 17(1), 247–257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Benoît, C. (1996). On the production and the perception of audio-visual speech by man and machine. In Multimedia & video coding. New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bente, G., Rüggenberg, S., Krämer, N. C., & Eschenburg, F. (2008). Avatar-mediated networking: Increasing social presence and interpersonal trust in net-based collaborations. Human Communication Research, 34(2), 287–318.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Berkman, L. F., & Syme, S. L. (1979). Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: A nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109(2), 186–204.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Beun, R. J., De Vos, E., & Witteman, C. (2003). Embodied conversational agents: Effects on memory performance and anthropomorphisation. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 315–319). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Bickmore, T. W. (2003). Relational agents: Effecting change through human-computer relationships. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Bickmore, T., & Cassell, J. (2001). Relational agents: A model and implementation of building user trust. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 396–403). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Bickmore, T., & Cassell, J. (2005). Social dialogue with embodied conversational agents. In Advances in natural multimodal dialogue systems (pp. 23–54). New York: Kluwer Academic.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Bickmore, T., & Gruber, A. (2010). Relational agents in clinical psychiatry. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 18(2), 119–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Bickmore, T., & Pfeifer, L. (2008). Relational agents for antipsychotic medication adherence. In: CHI’08 workshop on technology in mental health, Florence, Italy.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Bickmore, T. W., & Picard, R. W. (2004). Towards caring machines. In CHI’04 Extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1489–1492). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Bickmore, T. W., & Picard, R. W. (2005). Establishing and maintaining long-term human-computer relationships. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 12(2), 293–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Bickmore, T. W., Caruso, L., & Clough-Gorr, K. (2005). Acceptance and usability of a relational agent interface by urban older adults. In CHI’05 Extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1212–1215). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Bickmore, T. W., Mauer, D., & Brown, T. (2009). Context awareness in a handheld exercise agent. Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 5(3), 226–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Bickmore, T. W., Pfeifer, L. M., & Jack, B. W. (2009). Taking the time to care: Empowering low health literacy hospital patients with virtual nurse agents. In Proceedings of the 27th international conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1265–1274). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Blascovich, J., Loomis, J., Beall, A. C., Swinth, K. R., Hoyt, C. L., & Bailenson, J. N. (2002). Immersive virtual environment technology as a methodological tool for social psychology. Psychological Inquiry, 13(2), 103–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Booth, M. L., Owen, N., Bauman, A., Clavisi, O., & Leslie, E. (2000). Social-cognitive and perceived environment influences associated with physical activity in older Australians. Preventive Medicine, 31(1), 15–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Bosse, T., Siddiqui, G., & Treur, J. (2010). An intelligent virtual agent to increase involvement in financial services. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 378–384). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Brewer, M. B., & Hewstone, M. (2004). Emotion and motivation. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Buisine, S., & Martin, J. C. (2007). The effects of speech-gesture cooperation in animated agents’ behavior in multimedia presentations. Interacting with Computers, 19, 484–493.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Buisine, S., & Martin, J. C. (2010). The influence of user’s personality and gender on the processing of virtual agents’ multimodal behavior. Advances in Psychology Research, 65, 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Burgoon, J. K. (1994). Nonverbal signals. In M. L. Knapp & G. R. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (2nd ed., pp. 229–285). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (2009). Action, affect, and two-mode models of functioning. In Oxford handbook of human action (pp. 298–327). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Cassell, J. (2000). Nudge nudge wink wink: Elements of face-to-face conversation for embodied conversational agents. In Embodied conversational agents (pp. 1–27). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Cassell, J., & Thorisson, K. R. (1999). The power of a nod and a glance: Envelope vs. emotional feedback in animated conversational agents. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 13(4–5), 519–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Charles, S. T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2010). Social and emotional aging. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 383–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Cortellessa, G., Koch-Svedberg, G., Loutfi, A., Pecora, F., Scopelliti, M., & Tiberio, L. (2008). A cross-cultural evaluation of domestic assistive robots. In: Proceedings of the AAAI fall symposium on AI and Eldercare, Arlington, VA.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Crombie, I. K., Irvine, L., Williams, B., McGinnis, A. R., Slane, P. W., Alder, E. M., & McMurdo, M. E. T. (2004). Why older people do not participate in leisure time physical activity: A survey of activity levels, beliefs and deterrents. Age and Ageing, 33(3), 287–292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Dautenhahn, K. (2004). Robots we like to live with?! – A developmental perspective on a personalized, life-long robot companion. In 13th IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, 2004. ROMAN 2004 (pp. 17–22). Piscataway: IEEE Press.

    Google Scholar 

  40. de Melo, C., Carnevale, P., & Gratch, J. (2010). The influence of emotions in embodied agents on human decision-making. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 357–370). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  41. Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(3), 285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. DiSalvo, C., Gemperle, F., Forlizzi, J., & Montgomery, E. (2003). The Hug: an exploration of robotic form for intimate communication. In: The 12th IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, 2003. Proceedings. ROMAN 2003 (pp. 403–408). Canada: Vancouver.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Eizmendi, G., & Craddock, G. M. (2007). Challenges for assistive technology: AAATE 07 (20th ed.). Amsterdam: IOS Press Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Emiliani, P. L., Stephanidis, C., & Vanderheiden, G. (2011). Technology and inclusion – Past, present and foreseeable future. Technology and Disability, 23(3), 101–114.

    Google Scholar 

  45. European Union. (n.a.). E-Inclusion … what next? Embracing the future of social innovation 2010–2015. http://ec.europa.eu. Accessed 30 May 2012.

  46. Fagel, S. (2006). Emotional mcgurk effect. In: Proceedings of the international conference on speech prosody, Dresden (1st ed.).

    Google Scholar 

  47. Fagel, S., & Madany, K. (2008). Computeranimierte Sprechbewegungen in realen Anwendungen. Univ.-Verl. der TU, Univ.-Bibliothek.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Feil-Seifer, D., & Mataric, M. J. (2005). Defining socially assistive robotics. In: 9th international conference on rehabilitation robotics, 2005. ICORR 2005, Chicago, IL (pp. 465–468).

    Google Scholar 

  49. Fong, T., Nourbakhsh, I., & Dautenhahn, K. (2003). A survey of socially interactive robots. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 42(3), 143–166.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  50. Garau, M., Slater, M., Vinayagamoorthy, V., Brogni, A., Steed, A., & Sasse, M. A. (2003). The impact of avatar realism and eye gaze control on perceived quality of communication in a shared immersive virtual environment. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 529–536). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Gockley, R., & Mataric, M. J. (2006). Encouraging physical therapy compliance with a hands-off mobile robot. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCHI/SIGART conference on human-robot interaction (pp. 150–155). New York: ACM.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  52. Gockley, R., Bruce, A., Forlizzi, J., Michalowski, M., Mundell, A., Rosenthal, S., Sellner, B., et al. (2005). Designing robots for long-term social interaction. In IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, 2005. (IROS 2005) (pp. 1338–1343). Piscataway: IEE.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  53. Gong, L. (2007). Is happy better than sad even if they are both non-adaptive? Effects of emotional expressions of talking-head interface agents. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 65(3), 183–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Gratch, J., Okhmatovskaia, A., Lamothe, F., Marsella, S., Morales, M., van der Werf, R., & Morency, L. P. (2006). Virtual rapport. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 14–27). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  55. Guide. (2007). http://www.guide-project.eu/. Accessed 3 Jan 2013.

  56. Gump, B. B., & Kulik, J. A. (1997). Stress, affiliation, and emotional contagion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(2), 305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Hans, M., Graf, B., & Schraft, R. D. (385). Robotic home assistant care-o-bot: Past-present-future. In . 11th IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, 2002. Proceedings (pp. 380–385). Piscataway: IEEE.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Heerink, M., Kröse, B., Wielinga, B., & Evers, V. (2006). Studying the acceptance of a robotic agent by elderly users. International Journal of Assistive Robotics and Mechatronics, 7(3), 33–43.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Heerink, M., Kröse, B., Evers, V., & Wielinga, B. (2008). The influence of social presence on enjoyment and intention to use of a robot and screen agent by elderly users. In The 17th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication, 2008. RO-MAN 2008 (pp. 695–700). Piscataway: IEEE.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  60. Heerink, M., Kröse, B., Wielinga, B., & Evers, V. (2008). Enjoyment, intention to use and actual use of a conversational robot by elderly people. In 3rd ACM/IEEE international conference on human-robot interaction (HRI), 2008 (pp. 113–119). Piscataway: IEEE.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Heerink, M., Kröse, B., Evers, V., & Wielinga, B. (2010). Assessing acceptance of assistive social agent technology by older adults: The almere model. International Journal of Social Robotics, 2(4), 361–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Holden, M. K., & Dyar, T. (2002). Virtual environment training: A new tool for neurorehabilitation. Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy, 26(2), 62.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Hone, K. (2006). Empathic agents to reduce user frustration: The effects of varying agent characteristics. Interacting with Computers, 18(2), 227–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Hongpaisanwiwat, C., & Lewis, M. (2003). Attentional effect of animated character. In: Proceedings of the human-computer interaction (pp. 423–430). Switzerland: Zurich.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Hudlicka, E., Becker-Asano, C., Payr, S., Fischer, K., Ventura, R., Leite, I., & von Scheve, C. (2009). Social interaction with robots and agents: Where do we stand, where do we go? In: 3rd international conference on affective computing and intelligent interaction and workshops, 2009. ACII 2009 (pp. 1–6). Netherlands: Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  66. Inter Ikea Systems B.V. (1999–2012). Ikea, welcome. http://idea.com/us/en/. Accessed 12 Dec 2012.

  67. Ijsselsteijn, W. A., Kort, Y. A. W., Westerink, J., Jager, M., & Bonants, R. (2006). Virtual fitness: Stimulating exercise behavior through media technology. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15(6), 688–698.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Jensen, A., Wilson, D.-M., Jordine, K., & Sakpal, R. (2012). Using embodied pedagogical agents and direct instruction to improve learning outcomes for young children with learning disabilities. Global TIME 2012, 2012(1), 235–239.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Johnson, W. L., Rickel, J. W., & Lester, J. C. (2000). Animated pedagogical agents: Face-to-face interaction in interactive learning environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 11(1), 47–78.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Kamarck, T. W., Manuck, S. B., & Jennings, J. R. (1990). Social support reduces cardiovascular reactivity to psychological challenge: A laboratory model. Psychosomatic Medicine, 52(1), 42–58.

    Google Scholar 

  71. Kaminsky, T. A., Dudgeon, B. J., Billingsley, F. F., Mitchell, P. H., Weghorst, S. J., et al. (2007). Virtual cues and functional mobility of people with Parkinson’s disease: A single-subject pilot study. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, 44(3), 437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Kanda, T., Hirano, T., Eaton, D., & Ishiguro, H. (2004). Interactive robots as social partners and peer tutors for children: A field trial. Human Computer Interaction, 19(1), 61–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Kidd, C. D. (2007). Engagement in long-term human-robot interaction. PhD thesis in Media Arts & Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Klein, J., Moon, Y., & Picard, R. W. (2002). This computer responds to user frustration: Theory, design, and results. Interacting with computers, 14(2), 119–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. Koda, T., & Maes, P. (1996). Agents with faces: The effect of personification. In: 5th IEEE international workshop on robot and human communication, 1996 (pp. 189–194). Japan: Tsukuba.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Krahmer, E. J., & Swerts, M. (2006). Hearing and seeing beats: The influence of visual beats on the production and perception of prominence. In: Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2006. Germany: Dresden.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Krämer, N. C., & Bente, G. (2010). Personalizing e-learning. The social effects of pedagogical agents. Educational Psychology Review, 22(1), 71–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Krämer, N., Hoffmann, L., & Kopp, S. (2010). Know your users! Empirical results for tailoring an agent’ s nonverbal behavior to different user groups. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 468–474). Heidelberg: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  79. Krämer, N. C., Eimler, S., von der Pütten, A., & Payr, S. (2011). Theory of companions: What can theoretical models contribute to applications and understanding of human-robot interaction? Applied Artificial Intelligence, 25(6), 474–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  80. Kriglstein, S., & Wallner, G. (2005). HOMIE: an artificial companion for elderly people. CHI (Bd. 5, S. 02–07). New York: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Kryla-Lighthall, N., & Mather, M. (2009). The role of cognitive control in older adults’ emotional well-being. In V. L. Bengston, D. Gans, N. M. Putney, & M. Silverstein (Eds.), Handbook of theories of aging. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Lawson, S. W., & Chesney, T. (2007). The impact of owner age on companionship with virtual pets. In: Eighth international conference on information visualisation (IV’04) (4th ed., pp. 1922–1928). Switzerland: St. Gallen.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Lee, M. L., & Dey, A. K. (2008). Lifelogging memory appliance for people with episodic memory impairment. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on ubiquitous computing (pp. 44–53). South Korea: Seoul.

    Google Scholar 

  84. Lester, J. C., Converse, S. A., Kahler, S. E., Barlow, S. T., Stone, B. A., & Bhogal, R. S. (1997). The persona effect: Affective impact of animated pedagogical agents. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 359–366). USA: Atlanta, GA.

    Google Scholar 

  85. Looije, R., Cnossen, F., & Neerinex, M. (2006). Incorporating guidelines for health assistance into a socially intelligent robot. In: The 15th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication, 2006. ROMAN 2006 (pp. 515–520). United Kingdom: Hatfield.

    Google Scholar 

  86. Mark, G. (1999). Designing believable interaction by applying social conventions. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 13(3), 297–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  87. McCalley, T., & Mertens, A. (2007). The pet plant: Developing an inanimate emotionally interactive tool for the elderly. In: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on persuasive technology (pp. 68–79). USA: Palo Alto, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  88. Mohseni, M., & Lindstrom, M. (2007). Social capital, trust in the health-care system and self-rated health: The role of access to health care in a population-based study. Social Science & Medicine, 64(7), 1373–1383.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  89. Morandell, M., Fugger, E., & Prazak, B. (2007). The Alzheimer Avatar-Caregivers’ Faces used as GUI component. In Challenges for assistive technology AAATE (pp. 180–184). Amsterdam: IOS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  90. Morandell, M., Hochgatterer, A., Fagel, S., & Wassertheurer, S. (2008). Avatars in assistive homes for the elderly. In HCI and usability for education and work (pp. 391–402). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  91. Moreno, R., Mayer, R. E., Spires, H. A., & Lester, J. C. (2001). The case for social agency in computer-based teaching: Do students learn more deeply when they interact with animated pedagogical agents? Cognition and Instruction, 19(2), 177–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  92. Nass, C., Isbister, K., & Lee, E. J. (2000). Truth is beauty: Researching embodied conversational agents. In Embodied conversational agents (pp. 374–402). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  93. Nijholt, A. (2002, April 15-16). Embodied agents: A new impetus to humor research. In: The April fools' day workshop on computational humour, Trento, Italy (pp. 101--111). Twente Workshops on Language Technology 20. University of Twente. ISSN 0929-0672.

    Google Scholar 

  94. Nowak, K. L., & Biocca, F. (2003). The effect of the agency and anthropomorphism on users’ sense of telepresence, copresence, and social presence in virtual environments. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, 12(5), 481–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  95. Okonkwo, C., & Vassileva, J. (2001). Affective pedagogical agents and user persuasion. in: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on human-computer interaction (pp. 397–401). USA: New Orleans, Louisiana.

    Google Scholar 

  96. Ortiz, A., del Puy Carretero, M., Oyarzun, D., Yanguas, J., Buiza, C., Gonzalez, M., & Etxeberria, I. (2007). Elderly users in ambient intelligence: Does an avatar improve the interaction? In Universal access in ambient intelligence environments (pp. 99–114). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  97. Pandzic, I. S., Ostermann, J., & Millen, D. (1999). User evaluation: Synthetic talking faces for interactive services. The Visual Computer, 15(7), 330–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  98. Papalia, D. E., Camp, C. J., & Feldman, R. D. (1996). Adult development and aging. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  99. Parise, S., Kiesler, S., Sproull, L., & Waters, K. (1999). Cooperating with life-like interface agents. Computers in Human Behavior, 15(2), 123–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  100. Picard, R. W., & Klein, J. (2002). Computers that recognise and respond to user emotion: Theoretical and practical implications. Interacting with computers, 14(2), 141–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  101. Pollack, M. E., Brown, L., Colbry, D., McCarthy, C. E., Orosz, C., Peintner, B., Ramakrishnan, S., & Tsamardinos, I. (2003). Autominder: An intelligent cognitive orthotic system for people with memory impairment. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 44(3), 273–282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  102. Prendinger, H., Mori, J., & Ishizuka, M. (2005). Using human physiology to evaluate subtle expressivity of a virtual quizmaster in a mathematical game. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 62(2), 231–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  103. Qiu, L., & Benbasat, I. (2005). Online consumer trust and live help interfaces: The effects of text-to-speech voice and three-dimensional avatars. International Journal of Human Computer Interaction, 19(1), 75–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  104. Raina, P., Waltner-Toews, D., Bonnett, B., Woodward, C., & Abernathy, T. (1999). Influence of companion animals on the physical and psychological health of older people: An analysis of a one-year longitudinal study. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 47(3), 323–329.

    Google Scholar 

  105. Reeves, B., & Nass, C. (1996). How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places. Stanford/New York: CSLI Publications/Cambridge university press.

    Google Scholar 

  106. Rickenberg, R., & Reeves, B. (2000). The effects of animated characters on anxiety, task performance, and evaluations of user interfaces. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 49–56). Netherlands: The Hague.

    Google Scholar 

  107. Riedl, R., Mohr, P., Kenning, P., Davis, F., & Heekeren, H. (2011, December 6). Trusting humans and avatars: Behavioral and neural evidence. ICIS 2011 Proceedings (Paper 7). Shanghai. http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2011/proceedings/hci/7

  108. Ruttkay, Z., Zwiers, J., van Welbergen, H., & Reidsma, D. (2006). Towards a reactive virtual trainer. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 292–303). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  109. Salzman, B. (2010). Gait and balance disorders in older adults. American Family Physician, 82(1), 61–68.

    Google Scholar 

  110. San-Segundo, R., López, V., Martín, R., Lufti, S., Ferreiros, J., Córdoba, R., & Pardo, J. M. (2010). Advanced Speech Communication System for Deaf People. In: Eleventh annual conference of the International Speech Communication Association. Japan: Makuhari.

    Google Scholar 

  111. Scassellati, B. (2007). How social robots will help us to diagnose, treat, and understand autism. In Robotics research (pp. 552–563). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  112. Schroeder, R. (2002). The social life of avatars: Presence and interaction in shared virtual environments. London: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  113. Shibata, T., Wada, K., & Tanie, K. (2003). Statistical analysis and comparison of questionnaire results of subjective evaluations of seal robot in Japan and UK. In: IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, 2003. Proceedings. ICRA’03, 3 (pp. 3152–3157). Taiwan: Taipei.

    Google Scholar 

  114. Stichting Steffie. (2007). www.steffie.nl, zo werkt het. http://steffie.nl. Accessed 3 Jan 2013.

  115. Stiehl, W. D., Breazeal, C., Han, K. H., Lieberman, J., Lalla, L., Maymin, A., Salinas, J., et al. (2006). The huggable: A therapeutic robotic companion for relational, affective touch. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 emerging technologies (p. 15). New York: ACM.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  116. Swartz, L. (2003). Why people hate the paperclip: Labels, appearance, behavior, and social responses to user interface agents. Citeseer. Stanford: Stanford University.

    Google Scholar 

  117. Takeuchi, A., & Naito, T. (1995). Situated facial displays: Towards social interaction. In I. Katz, R. Mack, L. Marks, M. B. Rosson, & J. Nielsen (Eds.), Human factors in computing systems: CHI+95 conference proceedings (pp. 450–455). New York: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  118. Teigen, K. H. (1994). Yerkes-Dodson: A law for all seasons. Theory & Psychology, 4(4), 525–547.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  119. Tognazzini, B. (1992). TOG on interface. Reading: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  120. Vinayagamoorthy, V., Gillies, M., Steed, A., Tanguy, E., Pan, X., Loscos, C., & Slater, M. (2006). Building expression into virtual characters. In: Eurographics conference state of the art reports. Goldsmiths Research Online. London.

    Google Scholar 

  121. Voerman, J. L., & FitzGerald, P. J. (2000). Deictic and emotive communication in animated pedagogical agents. In Embodied conversational agents (p. 123). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  122. von der Pütten, A., Krämer, N., & Gratch, J. (2010). How our personality shapes our interactions with virtual characters-implications for research and development. In Intelligent virtual agents (pp. 208–221). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  123. Vormbrock, J. K., & Grossberg, J. M. (1988). Cardiovascular effects of human-pet dog interactions. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 11(5), 509–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  124. Wada, K., & Shibata, T. (2007). Living with seal robots—Its sociopsychological and physiological influences on the elderly at a care house. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 23(5), 972–980.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  125. Walker, J. H., Sproull, L., & Subramani, R. (1994). Using a human face in an interface. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems: Celebrating interdependence (pp. 85–91). United States: Boston, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  126. Werry, I., & Dautenhahn, K. (1999). Applying mobile robot technology to the rehabilitation of autistic children. In: Proceedings of the SIRS99, 7th symposium on intelligent robotic systems. Portugal: Coimbra.

    Google Scholar 

  127. Wethington, E., & Kessler, R. C. (1986). Perceived support, received support, and adjustment to stressful life events. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 27, 78–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  128. Wilson, C. C., & Turner, D. C. (1998). Companion animals in human health. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  129. Wu, P., & Miller, C. (2005). Results from a field study: The need for an emotional relationship between the elderly and their assistive technologies. In: 1st international conference on augmented cognition, Las Vegas.

    Google Scholar 

  130. Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., & Rickertsen, K. (2007). A meta-analysis of the impact of the inclusion and realism of human-like faces on user experiences in interfaces. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1–10). USA: San Jose, California.

    Google Scholar 

  131. Zajonc, R. B. (1965). Social facilitation. Ann Arbor: Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

    Google Scholar 

  132. Zunzunegui, M. V., Alvarado, B. E., Del Ser, T., & Otero, A. (2003). Social networks, social integration, and social engagement determine cognitive decline in community-dwelling Spanish older adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 58(2), 93–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by the GUIDE Project of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement 24889.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Graphics Center (CCG), University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

    Dominic Noy & Pedro Ribeiro

  2. EngageLab, Centro Algoritmi, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

    Ido A. Iurgel

  3. Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany

    Ido A. Iurgel

Authors
  1. Dominic Noy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pedro Ribeiro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ido A. Iurgel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dominic Noy .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Sreet, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom

    Pradipta Biswas

  2. Department of Informatics, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, Lisbon, 1749-016, Portugal

    Carlos Duarte

  3. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, United Kingdom

    Patrick Langdon

  4. Centro de Computação Gráfica, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Azurém, Guimarães, 4800-058, Portugal

    Luis Almeida

  5. Fraunhofer IGD, Fraunhoferstr. 5, Darmstadt, 64283, Germany

    Christoph Jung

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer-Verlag London

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Noy, D., Ribeiro, P., Iurgel, I.A. (2013). Embodied Virtual Agents as a Means to Foster E-Inclusion of Older People. In: Biswas, P., Duarte, C., Langdon, P., Almeida, L., Jung, C. (eds) A Multimodal End-2-End Approach to Accessible Computing. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5082-4_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5082-4_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-5081-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-5082-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation