Abstract
Older adults with strong social connections are at a reduced risk for health problems and mortality. We describe two field studies to inform the development of a virtual agent designed to provide long-term, continuous social support to isolated older adults. Findings include the topics that older adults would like to discuss with a companion agent, in addition to overall reactions to interacting with a remote-controlled companion agent installed in their home for a week. Results indicate a generally positive attitude towards companion agents and a rich research agenda for virtual companion agents.
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Vardoulakis, L.P., Ring, L., Barry, B., Sidner, C.L., Bickmore, T. (2012). Designing Relational Agents as Long Term Social Companions for Older Adults. In: Nakano, Y., Neff, M., Paiva, A., Walker, M. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7502. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33197-8_30
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33197-8_30
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