AUTHOR=El Kamali Mira , Angelini Leonardo , Lalanne Denis , Abou Khaled Omar , Mugellini Elena 

TITLE=Older adults' perspectives on multimodal interaction with a conversational virtual coach

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Computer Science

VOLUME=5

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/computer-science/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2023.1125895

DOI=10.3389/fcomp.2023.1125895

ISSN=2624-9898

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>The use of multiple interfaces may improve the perception of a stronger relationship between a conversational virtual coach and older adults. The purpose of this paper is to show the effect of output combinations [single-interface (chatbot, tangible coach), multi-interface (assignment, redundant-complementary)] of two distinct conversational agent interfaces (chatbot and tangible coach) on the eCoach-user relationship (closeness, commitment, complementarity) and the older adults' feeling of social presence of the eCoach.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Our study was conducted with two different study settings: an online web survey and a face to face experiment.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Our online study with 59 seniors shows that the output modes in multi-interface redundant-complementary manner significantly improves the eCoach-user relationship and social presence of the eCoach compared to only using single-interfaces outputs. Whereas in our face to face experiment with 15 seniors, significant results were found only in terms of higher social presence of multi-interface redundant complementary manner compared to chatbot only.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>We also investigated the effect of each study design on our results, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.</p></sec>