Addressing Loneliness and Isolation in Older Adults: Proactive Affective Agents Provide Better Support

Loneliness and social isolation are significant problems in older adult populations. We describe a conversational agent-based system designed to provide longitudinal social support to isolated older adults. Results from an exploratory pilot study indicate that when the agent proactively draws elders...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction and workshops pp. 61 - 66
Main Authors Ring, Lazlo, Barry, Barbara, Totzke, Kathleen, Bickmore, Timothy
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.09.2013
Subjects
Affective computing
Computers
Correlation
ECA
Encoding
Mood
Older Adults
Sociology
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Summary:Loneliness and social isolation are significant problems in older adult populations. We describe a conversational agent-based system designed to provide longitudinal social support to isolated older adults. Results from an exploratory pilot study indicate that when the agent proactively draws elders into interactions, it is more effective at addressing loneliness than when the agent passively relies upon elders to initiate interactions. We discuss future research opportunities for affective computing to address this important societal problem.
ISSN:2156-8103
DOI:10.1109/ACII.2013.17