PRE2020 4 Group4

Coco, The Computer Companion

Group Description

Members

Name	Student ID	Department	Email address
Eline Ensinck	1333941	Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences	e.n.f.ensinck@student.tue.nl
Julie van der Hijde	1251244	Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences	j.v.d.hijde@student.tue.nl
Ezra Gerris	1378910	Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences	e.gerris@student.tue.nl
Silke Franken	1330284	Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences	s.w.franken@student.tue.nl
Kari Luijt	1327119	Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences	k.luijt@student.tue.nl

Logbook

See the following page: Logbook Group 4

Subject

We want to analyze and design an AI robot componanion to improve online learning and working from home problems like diminished motivation, loneliness and physical health problems. In order to address these problems we will introduce you to Coco, the computer companion. Coco will be an artificially intelligent and interactive agent that users can easily install on their laptop or PC.

Problem Statement and Objectives

Problem Statement

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged at the beginning of 2020 everyone's lives have been turned upside down. Working from home as much as possible was (and still is) the norm in many places all around the world and it applies to office workers, but also to college-, university-, and high school students. Even though there might be benefits from working in a home office, there are also many disadvantages that are critical to everyone's health, motivation and concentration. Multiple studies have found such effects, both mental and physical, because of the work from home situation .

Mental issues that might arise are emotional exhaustion, but also feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression. Moreover, because people have a high exposure to computer screens, they can experience fatigue, tiredness, headaches and eye-related symptoms. Additionally, people exercise less while working from home during the pandemic. This can have effects on metabolic, cardiovascular, and mental health, and all this might result in higher chances of mortality.

Other issues are related to the concentration and motivation of the people that are working from home. Office workers that work at home while also taking care of their families have lots of problems with staying on one task, because they want to run errands for their families. In addition to this, it requires greater concentration for home office workers during communication . Students have also indicated to experience a heavier workload, fatigue and a loss of motivation due to COVID-19 .

Objectives

Our objectives are the following:

1. Help with concentration and motivation (study-buddy)
2. Improve physical health
3. Provide social support for the user

USE: User, Society and Enterprise

Target user group

The user groups for this project will be office workers, college-, university-, and high school students, since these groups experience the most negative effects of the restrictions to work from home. There are several requirements for each group, most of them are related to COVID-19. First of all, there are some requirements relating to mental health. It is important for people to have social interactions from time to time. Individuals living alone could get mental health issues such as depression and loneliness due to the lack of these social interactions, caused by the restrictions . It is also important for people to be able to concentrate well when they are working and that they can maintain their motivation and focus. Studies show that due to COVID-19 students experience a heavier workload, fatigue and a loss of motivation . Considering the physical health, it is important that students and office workers are physically active and healthy. Some problems for the physical health of students and employees can arise from working from home. People that have an office job often do not get a lot of physical exercise during their workhours, but quarantine measures have reduced this even more . This can affect cardiovascular and metabolic health, but even mental health . In addition to this, the increased exposure to computer screens since the outbreak of COVID-19, especially applicable to high school students, can result in tiredness, headache and eye-related symptoms . Hence, students and employees should become more physically active to improve their physical (and mental) health.

Secondary users

When people use Coco, they should gain better concentration and motivation and better physical health than without the computer assistant. Moreover, people that might feel lonely can find social support in Coco. Parents of the students will also profit from these aforementioned benefits of Coco, because they need to worry less about their children and their education, as Coco will assist them while studying.

Besides parents, teachers will profit from Coco too. Since Coco will help the students with studying, the teachers can focus on their actual educational tasks.

Moreover, co-workers and managers will profit from their colleagues using Coco. Coco can help the workers maintain physical and mental health which in turn leads to a better work mentality and environment

Society

When people use Coco the computer companion they will have better, concentration, motivation and better mental and physical health. This means that a lot of people in the society will have a higher well-being which in turn results in a healtier society. Moreover, because people work and study better both companies and the schools will have better results.

Enterprise

There are two main stakeholders for enterprises. Coco needs to be developed and this is where a software company comes in. Such a company will develop the virtual agent and will sell licenses to other companies. These companies are the other stakeholders and are interested in buying Coco for their employees or students. This could be small enterprises that want to buy a license for a small group of employees, but also large universities that want to provide the virtual agent for all their students. The effects for the software development company will be economic, since they will earn money with selling the Coco software licenses. For the interested companies, buying the license will mean that their employees’ physical and mental health will increase i.e., the primary users’ benefits.

Approach

In order to address the consequences and improve health and motivation in home-office workers, we will introduce to you Coco, the computer companion. Coco will be an artificially intelligent and interactive agent that users can easily install on their laptop or PC.

Concerning the mental health of users, a main problem is loneliness. It has been researched before what the impact of robotic technologies is on social support. Ta et al have found that artificial agents do not only provide social support in laboratory experiments but also in daily life situations. Furthermore, Odekerken-Schröder et al. (2020) have found that companion robots can reduce feelings of loneliness by building supportive relationships.

Regarding the physical well-being of users, the use of technology could be useful to improve physical activity. As stated by Cambo et al. (2017), using a mobile application or wearable that tracks self-interruption and initiates a playful break, could induce physical activity in the daily routine of users . Moreover, Henning et al. (1997) have found that at smaller work sites, users’ well-being improved when exercises were included in the small breaks .

Finally considering the productivity of users, a paper by Abbasi and Kazi (2014) shows that a learning chatbot systems can enhance the performance of students. In an experiment where one group used Google and another group used a chatbot to solve problems, the chatbot had impact on memory retention and learning outcomes of the students. The same research as mentioned before from Henning et al also showed that not only the users’ well-being, but also the users’ productivity would increase in the presence of a chatbot. Moreover, as has been researched in an experiment of Lester et al. (1997), the presence of a lifelike character in an online learning environment can have a strong influence on the perceived learning experience of students around the age of 12. Adding such an interactive agent to the learning process can make it more fun, next to the fact that the agent is perceived to be helpful and credible.

Method

At the end of the project, we will present our complete concept of the AI companion. This will include its design and functionality, which are based on both literature research and statistical analysis of send-out questionnaires. The questionnaires will be completed by the user group to make sure the actual users of the technology have their input in the development and analysis of the companion. Moreover, the user needs and perceptions will be described. The larger societal and entrepreneurial effects will also be taken into account. In this way, all USE-aspects will be addressed. Finally, a risk assessment will be included, as limitations related to the costs and privacy of the product are also important for the realization of the technology. These deliverables will be presented both in a Wiki-page and final presentation. A schematic overview of the deliverables can be found in Table 1.

Table 1: Schematic overview of the deliverables

Topic	Deliverable
Functionality	Literature study
	Results questionnaire 1: user needs
Design	Results questionnaire 2: design
	Example companion
Additional	Risk assessment

Milestones

During the project, several milestones are planned to be reached. These milestones correspond to the deliverables mentioned in the section above and can be found in table 2.

Table 2: Overview of the milestones

Topic	Milestone
Organization	Complete planning
Functionality	Complete literature study
	Responses questionnaire 1: user needs
	Complete analysis questionnaire 1: user needs
Design	Responses questionnaire 2: design
	Complete analysis questionnaire 2: design
	Design of the companion

Survey

To find out more about the group of people that will be most interested in having a virtual companion, a survey will be conducted. This survey acts as a means the specify the target group and to get to know their preferences regarding the functionality of the virtual agent.

An early draft of the survey can be found here.

Planning

Research

State of the Art

Productivity agents

As discussed by Grover et al. multiple applications exist that focus on task and time management. They all try to assist their users but do so in different ways. “MeTime”, for example, tries to make its users aware of their distractions by showing which apps they use (and for how long). “Calendar.help”, on the other hand, is connected to its user's email and can schedule meetings accordingly. Other examples include “RADAR” that tackles the problem of “email overload” and “TaskBot” that focuses on teamwork.

Grover et al. mention how Kimani et al. designed a so-called productivity agent, in an attempt to incorporate all the beforementioned applications with different functions into one artificially intelligent system. The conversational agent that they described focused on improving productivity and well-being in the workspace. By means of a survey and a field study, they investigated the optimal functionality of a productivity agent. Findings suggests four tasks that are most important for such agents to possess. These tasks include distraction monitoring, task scheduling, task management and goal reflection.

With their research, Grover and colleagues wanted to get more insight on the influence of anthropomorphic appearance in agents versus a simple text-based bot which lower perceived emotional intelligence. Even though productivity was increased with the presence of a chatbot, outcomes suggest that there was no significant performance difference between the virtual agent and the text-based agent. Interaction with the virtual agent was however perceived to be more pleasant, supporting the idea that higher emotional intelligence in agents can reduce negative emotions like frustration . The researchers also found that it is important that the appearance of the agent matches their capabilities, meaning that agents should only have anthropomorphistic looks if it can also act human-like. Other suggestions for improvement were focused on the agent’s inflexible task management skills and inappropriately timed distraction monitoring messages. Those last points especially will act as a guidance in designing an improved Agent System Architecture during this research. Grover et al. suggest including an additional dialog model into the agent architecture, which could be initiated by the user when they want to reschedule or change the duration of a task. They also suggest extending the distraction detection functionality and let users personalize their list of distracting websites and applications.

Companion agents

When going to the Play Store or App Store on your mobile phone, you can download “Replika: My AI Friend". This is a companion chatbot, that imitates human-like conversations. The more you use the app, the more it also learns about you. Ta et al. investigated the effects of this advanced chatbot. They found out that it is successful in reducing loneliness as it resembles some form of companionship. Some other benefits were found as well. These include its ability to positively affect its users by sending positive and caring messages, to give advice, and to enable a conversation without fear of judgements.

Physical health agents

Cambo, Avrahami, & Lee investigated the application “BreakSense” and concluded that the technology should let the user decide for themselves when to take a break. They discovered that in this way, the physical activity became part of their daily routine.

Computer assistants

Although these agents focus on specific tasks, there also exist personal computer assistants that are developed to help, for instance children, more generally with their daily activities. The study by Kessens et al. investigated such a computer assistant, namely the Philips iCat. This animated virtual robot can show varying emotional expressions and fulfilled the roles of both companion, educator and motivator.

Related Literature

General

A list of related scientific papers, including short summaries stating their relevance, can be found here.

Design of the Virtual Agent

In week 3 a separate literature study has been conducted, specifically focused on the design aspect of the virtual agent. As a result of this study, it is planned to form a scientifically grounded recommendation for the design of the virtual agent, based on the direction of all papers taken together.

An overview of the collected data regarding the design and appearance of the agent can be found here.

Motivation for virtual agent

This section contains the motivation for the decision to develop a virtual agent instead of a physical robot. Several important aspects of Coco will be discussed to reach this, including its emotional intelligence, embodiment and costs. Disclaimer: this is still a concept and will thus be extended later

Emotional intelligence and communication

One of the qualities of Coco should be that it is able to provide social support (objective 3). Of course, the question arises whether artificial agents can actually ‘understand’ feelings, or whether they are simply manipulating symbols. A famous thought experiment, called the Chinese Room, covers this topic . Regardless of this, we would like Coco to show emotional intelligent behavior (whether it then actually has intelligence or not is a topic that is left for discussion).

Research has shown that artificial agents that show such intelligent behavior come across as more reliable than robots that lack this property (Fan, Scheutz, Lohani, Mccoy, & Stokes). Moreover, robots that do not show intelligent behavior can be experienced as confusing or unpredictable to humans. As soon as behavior is misinterpreted by the users, emotional harm could be caused (Fan et al.). Of course, this should by all means be prevented if possible.

A virtual agent with intelligent behavior would hence be preferred over a robot without intelligent behavior.

Physical versus simulated embodiment

Tanaka, Nakanishi & Ishiguro have found in an experiment that physical embodiment of robot enhanced the social telepresence, which is the feeling of face-to-face interaction while a person is not physically present (e.g. using videocalls). In addition, they have also found that this social telepresence decreases the smoothness of speech of the participant, which is not as expected (Tanaka, Nakanishi, & Ishiguro) .

According to Milne et al., the most important advantages of virtual agents are that they can be accessed at any time and that they do not need to be repaired (Milne, Luerssen, Lewis, Leibbrandt, & Powers) .

The article of Lee, Jung, Kim & Kim researches one of the most fundamental questions about social robots, namely whether or not physical embodiment adds value for good social interaction compared to disembodied social robots. For instance, manufacturing of embodied robots is very expensive, and many technical difficulties can arise because of the many embedded sensors and motors. Moreover, “physical embodied agents may facilitate better social interaction with its users by providing more affordance for proper social interaction”, where affordance means the fundamental properties of a device that determine its ways of use. Lee et al. also found that if an embodied robot had anthropomorphic-physical embodiment, expectations of the robot were very high. When it then did not have the ability to react to touch-input, the high expectations of the people dropped and they became frustrated and disappointed in the robot. This might be a general negative effect of physical embodiment (especially for lonely people that might use the robot as a real companion) .

Wang & Rau have researched the effect on users’ responses of different types of social robots. They distinguished on two factors; embodiment and substrates. It has been found that people prefer that the embodiment matches the substrate. This means that they would prefer if a physical robot has the best effect in a physical substrate, but a virtual robot the best in a virtual substrate. This means that our design idea matches their research findings and that a virtual context (i.e. a computer/laptop) will best comply with a virtual embodiment . A different paper agrees with Wang & Rau and also recommends that a virtual agent works best in a 2D environment, while a physical robot works best in a 3D environment .

Costs

A paper on design of social robots from Puehn et al. compares a low-cost social robot ‘Philos’ to commercial social robots that cost much more money and require more maintenance. Their design idea Philos has a commercial value of $3,000 where the associated software is free. Whereas the robotic pet Paro costs around $6,000 and the humanoid robot Nao over $15,000 .

Furthermore, according to Avramova et al. “physical robot platforms are typically very expensive to build, alter and maintain.". On the other side, software can easily be updated .

• https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/ai-pricing.html is an interesting website to see how much it will cost to develop AI software. Comparing e.g. chatbots, large data analysis systems and virtual assistants.

Functionalities

In order to improve its user's concentration and motivation (objective 1), Coco would benefit from permission to control apps or websites. Imagine, for instance, that someone has his/her social media open when trying to make exercises. Incoming messages could cause a lot of distraction, which could be prevented by (temporarily) blocking this website. Related to this, Coco could monitor your activity on the computer. In this way, it could provide summaries and recommendations on how you should invest your time. Coco could also be used to make an efficient and motivating planning for its users. Being able to link Coco to the user's schedule would be necessary for this task. Hence, some of the desired functionalities of Coco are thought to be implemented easier in a virtual agent than in a physical robot.

Conclusion

Although physical robots could be a better choice for certain applications, it seems that in the end for Coco, the costs and benefits of a virtual agent outweigh the benefits of a physical robot. One large advance is the fact that a virtual agent would make the technology better accessible to a large public. Although not everyone has the money to buy an advanced robot, many would be able to invest in a license to use the software. In this way, the objectives of Coco, can be achieved the best by developing a virtual agent.

Analysis Survey 1

Interest

Corona impact on productivity and health

Considering the effect of COVID-19 on people's perception of their work situation, several observations can be made. Generally, mental health, loneliness and productivity are the three areas that have been negatively impacted by the corona crisis the most.

Since this questionnaire was also made to determine the user group that would need the help of a VA the most, the following matters will also be analyzed based on age. Generally, people older than 25 take less brakes since COVID-19, and younger people tend to take more breaks. Younger people generally think their concentration has decreased since COVID-19 and on the other hand, people older than 25 generally say their concentration has increased. However, both groups state their productivity has decreased. Although both groups state that their mental health, physical health and feeling of loneliness have decreased since COVID-19, the younger usergroup indicates a greater negative impact.

In Table 1 the means of the two groups are shown to clarify the above made statements. When the mean is smaller than 0, there is an indicated decrease and if this impact is bigger than 0, there is an increase. There is a significant difference between the two groups if the p-value is smaller than 0.05. All this information suggests that it might be best to focus on people of 25 or younger for this research.

Table 1: The means for several aspects for the different age groups.

Aspects	Mean <= 25	Mean > 25	p-value
Taking breaks	0.19	-0.49	0.0001
Concentration	-0.30	2.9	0.0004
Feeling of loneliness	-0.40	-0.36	0.7745
Mental health	-0.61	-0.28	0.0117
Motivation	0.37	0.19	0.1868
Physical health	-0.74	-0.09	0.0001
Productivity	-0.47	-0.31	0.2165

Helpful tasks for a virtual agent Sixteen different variables are used to see what users prefer as tasks for a virtual agent. For every variable, they could choose five options from a Likert scale varying between ‘Not useful at all’ to ‘Very useful’. From the histograms it can be seen that ‘Help avoiding distractions by blocking applications’, ‘Encourage physical activity’, ‘Help you to focus on a currently scheduled task by getting you back from distractions’, ‘Help increase productivity with your favorite concentration/focus application’, ‘Provide stretching or other physical exercises in between your work’, ‘Reflect on work at the end of the day’, ‘Providing reminders of your schedule’, ‘Make task switching smoother’ and ‘Help you to work according to your preferred time-scheduling technique’ all seem to lean to the more useful side. These can be supported by skewness values. A skewness value below zero means that the data is more distributed to the right, while a positive value means that the data is more distributed to the left. We try to find a negative skewness here to confirm what is mentioned above. All the skewness values of above topics are indeed negative. In addition, also ‘Help schedule tasks in your preferred scheduling application’ has a negative skewness value, however, as can be seen from the histogram this has also a large amount of ‘Not useful at all’ answers. In conclusion, the most useful tasks (based on negative skewness values of –0.34 to –0.40) are, from highest to lowest; ‘Help you to focus on a currently scheduled task by getting you back from distractions’, ‘Help increase productivity with your favorite concentration/focus application’, ‘Make task switching smoother’ and ‘Help avoiding distractions by blocking distracting applications’.

In addition, we wanted to see for all categories what the impact of age is. Therefore, we decided to make to subgroups: people of 25 years and younger & people over 25 years old. The difference between these groups will be plotted for the four most useful tasks, as defined above. The results can be found below. Especially blocking distracting apps and using your favorite focus app are helpful to increase productivity.

Appearance

In the survey, participants had to indicate their preferences for the appearance of Coco. There were three options (human, robot, animal) which they could rank from 1 (most favorable) to 3 (lest favorable). The frequency of option 1, 2, or 3 was then encoded for each appearance into three variables (“human_appearance", “robot_appearance", and “animal_appearance"). These results are shown in table 2.

Table 2: Percentages of ranking human, robot, and animal appearance.

	Human	Robot	Animal
Ranking 1	35.71%	34.52%	23.21%
Ranking 2	27.98%	27.38%	32.74%
Ranking 3	29.17%	29.17%	34.52%

As becomes clear from table 2, people like a human or a robot almost exactly the same. An animal, on the other hand, is somewhat less favorable, as it is chosen less often as first option and more often as second or third option. It would be useful to focus more on the preferences between humans and robots in the second survey.

To check for any different preferences between younger (< 25 years) and older (>= 25 years) participants, the histograms shown in Figure X, Figure X, and Figure X are analyzed. Looking at these plots, some differences seem to exist. To check whether these differences are significant, a Chi-square test has been performed for each variable “human_appearance", “robot_appearance", and “animal_appearance". The alpha-value has been set at its default-value of 0.05 and the p-values are 0.000 (human), 0.096 (robot), and 0.012 (animal). Hence, indeed a significant difference is found in the preferences for a human or animal appearance between younger and older people. Older people think a human appearance is most favorable, while younger people think the opposite. Also, older people prefer an animal appearance less than younger people. However, the differences in case of a robot appear to be insignificant.

References