To adapt or not to adapt ? Older adults enacting agency in dialogues with an unknowledgeable agentShow others and affiliations
2024 (English)In: UMAP '24: proceedings of the 32nd ACM conference on user modeling, adaptation and personalization, New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2024, p. 307-316Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Health-promoting digital agents, taking on the role of an assistant, coach or companion, are expected to have knowledge about a person's medical and health aspects, yet they typically lack knowledge about the person's activities. These activities may vary daily or weekly and are contextually situated, posing challenges for the human-Agent interaction. This pilot study aimed to explore the experiences and behaviors of older adults when interacting with an initially unknowledgeable digital agent that queries them about an activity that they are simultaneously engaged in. Five older adults participated in a scenario involving preparing coffee followed by having coffee with a guest. While performing these activities, participants educated the smartwatch-embedded agent, named Virtual Occupational Therapist (VOT), about their activity performance by answering a set of activity-ontology based questions posed by the VOT. Participants' interactions with the VOT were observed, followed by a semi-structured interview focusing on their experience with the VOT. Collected data were analyzed using an activity-Theoretical framework. Results revealed participants exhibited agency and autonomy, deciding whether to adapt to the VOT's actions in three phases: Adjustment to the VOT, partial adjustment, and the exercise of agency by putting the VOT to sleep after the social conditions and activity changed. Results imply that the VOT should incorporate the ability to distinguish when humans collaborate as expected by the VOT and when they choose not to comply and instead act according to their own agenda. Future research focuses on how collaboration evolves and how the VOT needs to adapt in the process.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2024. p. 307-316
Keywords [en]
Activities of Daily Living, Activity Theory, Agency, Digital Companion, Human-Agent Collaboration, Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence, Personalization, User Studies
National Category
Computer graphics and computer vision Occupational Therapy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-227913DOI: 10.1145/3627043.3659562Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85197922116ISBN: 9798400704338 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-227913DiVA, id: diva2:1884770
Conference
32nd Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2024, Cagliari, Italy, July 1-4, 2024
Projects
HumanE-AI-Net
Funder
EU, Horizon 2020, 952026Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, MMW 2019.0220The Kempe Foundations, JCSMK22-01582024-07-182024-07-182025-02-01Bibliographically approved