@phdthesis{Huber2023, author = {Huber, Stephan}, title = {Proxemo: Documenting Observed Emotions in HCI}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-30573}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-305730}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2023}, abstract = {For formative evaluations of user experience (UX) a variety of methods have been developed over the years. However, most techniques require the users to interact with the study as a secondary task. This active involvement in the evaluation is not inclusive of all users and potentially biases the experience currently being studied. Yet there is a lack of methods for situations in which the user has no spare cognitive resources. This condition occurs when 1) users' cognitive abilities are impaired (e.g., people with dementia) or 2) users are confronted with very demanding tasks (e.g., air traffic controllers). In this work we focus on emotions as a key component of UX and propose the new structured observation method Proxemo for formative UX evaluations. Proxemo allows qualified observers to document users' emotions by proxy in real time and then directly link them to triggers. Technically this is achieved by synchronising the timestamps of emotions documented by observers with a video recording of the interaction. In order to facilitate the documentation of observed emotions in highly diverse contexts we conceptualise and implement two separate versions of a documentation aid named Proxemo App. For formative UX evaluations of technology-supported reminiscence sessions with people with dementia, we create a smartwatch app to discreetly document emotions from the categories anger, general alertness, pleasure, wistfulness and pride. For formative UX evaluations of prototypical user interfaces with air traffic controllers we create a smartphone app to efficiently document emotions from the categories anger, boredom, surprise, stress and pride. Descriptive case studies in both application domains indicate the feasibility and utility of the method Proxemo and the appropriateness of the respectively adapted design of the Proxemo App. The third part of this work is a series of meta-evaluation studies to determine quality criteria of Proxemo. We evaluate Proxemo regarding its reliability, validity, thoroughness and effectiveness, and compare Proxemo's efficiency and the observers' experience to documentation with pen and paper. Proxemo is reliable, as well as more efficient, thorough and effective than handwritten notes and provides a better UX to observers. Proxemo compares well with existing methods where benchmarks are available. With Proxemo we contribute a validated structured observation method that has shown to meet requirements formative UX evaluations in the extreme contexts of users with cognitive impairments or high task demands. Proxemo is agnostic regarding researchers' theoretical approaches and unites reductionist and holistic perspectives within one method. Future work should explore the applicability of Proxemo for further domains and extend the list of audited quality criteria to include, for instance, downstream utility. With respect to basic research we strive to better understand the sources leading observers to empathic judgments and propose reminisce and older adults as model environment for investigating mixed emotions.}, subject = {Gef{\"u}hl}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{AbendscheinDesaiAstell2023, author = {Abendschein, Robin and Desai, Shital and Astell, Arlene J.}, title = {Towards Accessibility Guidelines for the Metaverse : A Synthesis of Recommendations for People Living With Dementia}, series = {Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'23) : Workshop "Towards an Inclusive and Accessible Metaverse"}, booktitle = {Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'23) : Workshop "Towards an Inclusive and Accessible Metaverse"}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-32019}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-320199}, pages = {6}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Given the growing interest of corporate stakeholders in Metaverse applications, there is a need to understand accessibility of these technologies for marginalized populations such as people living with dementia to ensure inclusive design of Metaverse applications. We assessed the accessibility of extended reality technology for people living with mild cognitive impairment and dementia to develop accessibility guidelines for these technologies. We used four strategies to synthesize evidence for barriers and facilitators of accessibility: (1) Findings from a non-systematic literature review, (2) guidelines from well-researched technology, (3) exploration of selected mixed reality technologies, and (4) observations from four sessions and video data of people living with dementia using mixed reality technologies. We utilized template analysis to develop codes and themes towards accessibility guidelines. Future work can validate our preliminary findings by applying them on video recordings or testing them in experiments.}, subject = {CHI Conference}, language = {en} } @article{WienrichCarolusMarkusetal.2023, author = {Wienrich, Carolin and Carolus, Astrid and Markus, Andr{\´e} and Augustin, Yannik and Pfister, Jan and Hotho, Andreas}, title = {Long-term effects of perceived friendship with intelligent voice assistants on usage behavior, user experience, and social perceptions}, series = {Computers}, volume = {12}, journal = {Computers}, number = {4}, issn = {2073-431X}, doi = {10.3390/computers12040077}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-313552}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Social patterns and roles can develop when users talk to intelligent voice assistants (IVAs) daily. The current study investigates whether users assign different roles to devices and how this affects their usage behavior, user experience, and social perceptions. Since social roles take time to establish, we equipped 106 participants with Alexa or Google assistants and some smart home devices and observed their interactions for nine months. We analyzed diverse subjective (questionnaire) and objective data (interaction data). By combining social science and data science analyses, we identified two distinct clusters—users who assigned a friendship role to IVAs over time and users who did not. Interestingly, these clusters exhibited significant differences in their usage behavior, user experience, and social perceptions of the devices. For example, participants who assigned a role to IVAs attributed more friendship to them used them more frequently, reported more enjoyment during interactions, and perceived more empathy for IVAs. In addition, these users had distinct personal requirements, for example, they reported more loneliness. This study provides valuable insights into the role-specific effects and consequences of voice assistants. Recent developments in conversational language models such as ChatGPT suggest that the findings of this study could make an important contribution to the design of dialogic human-AI interactions.}, language = {en} } @article{HeinLatoschikWienrich2022, author = {Hein, Rebecca M. and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Inter- and transcultural learning in cocial virtual reality: a proposal for an inter- and transcultural virtual object database to be used in the implementation, reflection, and evaluation of virtual encounters}, series = {Multimodal Technologies and Interaction}, volume = {6}, journal = {Multimodal Technologies and Interaction}, number = {7}, issn = {2414-4088}, doi = {10.3390/mti6070050}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-278974}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Visual stimuli are frequently used to improve memory, language learning or perception, and understanding of metacognitive processes. However, in virtual reality (VR), there are few systematically and empirically derived databases. This paper proposes the first collection of virtual objects based on empirical evaluation for inter-and transcultural encounters between English- and German-speaking learners. We used explicit and implicit measurement methods to identify cultural associations and the degree of stereotypical perception for each virtual stimuli (n = 293) through two online studies, including native German and English-speaking participants. The analysis resulted in a final well-describable database of 128 objects (called InteractionSuitcase). In future applications, the objects can be used as a great interaction or conversation asset and behavioral measurement tool in social VR applications, especially in the field of foreign language education. For example, encounters can use the objects to describe their culture, or teachers can intuitively assess stereotyped attitudes of the encounters.}, language = {en} } @article{LatoschikWienrich2022, author = {Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Congruence and plausibility, not presence: pivotal conditions for XR experiences and effects, a novel approach}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, issn = {2673-4192}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2022.694433}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-284787}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Presence is often considered the most important quale describing the subjective feeling of being in a computer-generated and/or computer-mediated virtual environment. The identification and separation of orthogonal presence components, i.e., the place illusion and the plausibility illusion, has been an accepted theoretical model describing Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for some time. This perspective article challenges this presence-oriented VR theory. First, we argue that a place illusion cannot be the major construct to describe the much wider scope of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, MR: or XR for short). Second, we argue that there is no plausibility illusion but merely plausibility, and we derive the place illusion caused by the congruent and plausible generation of spatial cues and similarly for all the current model's so-defined illusions. Finally, we propose congruence and plausibility to become the central essential conditions in a novel theoretical model describing XR experiences and effects.}, language = {en} } @article{CarolusWienrichToerkeetal.2021, author = {Carolus, Astrid and Wienrich, Carolin and T{\"o}rke, Anna and Friedel, Tobias and Schwietering, Christian and Sperzel, Mareike}, title = {'Alexa, I feel for you!' Observers' empathetic reactions towards a conversational agent}, series = {Frontiers in Computer Science}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Computer Science}, doi = {10.3389/fcomp.2021.682982}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258807}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Conversational agents and smart speakers have grown in popularity offering a variety of options for use, which are available through intuitive speech operation. In contrast to the standard dyad of a single user and a device, voice-controlled operations can be observed by further attendees resulting in new, more social usage scenarios. Referring to the concept of 'media equation' and to research on the idea of 'computers as social actors,' which describes the potential of technology to trigger emotional reactions in users, this paper asks for the capacity of smart speakers to elicit empathy in observers of interactions. In a 2 × 2 online experiment, 140 participants watched a video of a man talking to an Amazon Echo either rudely or neutrally (factor 1), addressing it as 'Alexa' or 'Computer' (factor 2). Controlling for participants' trait empathy, the rude treatment results in participants' significantly higher ratings of empathy with the device, compared to the neutral treatment. The form of address had no significant effect. Results were independent of the participants' gender and usage experience indicating a rather universal effect, which confirms the basic idea of the media equation. Implications for users, developers and researchers were discussed in the light of (future) omnipresent voice-based technology interaction scenarios.}, language = {en} } @article{DoellingerWienrichLatoschik2021, author = {D{\"o}llinger, Nina and Wienrich, Carolin and Latoschik, Marc Erich}, title = {Challenges and opportunities of immersive technologies for mindfulness meditation: a systematic review}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {2}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2021.644683}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259047}, pages = {644683}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Mindfulness is considered an important factor of an individual's subjective well-being. Consequently, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has investigated approaches that strengthen mindfulness, i.e., by inventing multimedia technologies to support mindfulness meditation. These approaches often use smartphones, tablets, or consumer-grade desktop systems to allow everyday usage in users' private lives or in the scope of organized therapies. Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR, AR, MR; in short: XR) significantly extend the design space for such approaches. XR covers a wide range of potential sensory stimulation, perceptive and cognitive manipulations, content presentation, interaction, and agency. These facilities are linked to typical XR-specific perceptions that are conceptually closely related to mindfulness research, such as (virtual) presence and (virtual) embodiment. However, a successful exploitation of XR that strengthens mindfulness requires a systematic analysis of the potential interrelation and influencing mechanisms between XR technology, its properties, factors, and phenomena and existing models and theories of the construct of mindfulness. This article reports such a systematic analysis of XR-related research from HCI and life sciences to determine the extent to which existing research frameworks on HCI and mindfulness can be applied to XR technologies, the potential of XR technologies to support mindfulness, and open research gaps. Fifty papers of ACM Digital Library and National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (PubMed) with and without empirical efficacy evaluation were included in our analysis. The results reveal that at the current time, empirical research on XR-based mindfulness support mainly focuses on therapy and therapeutic outcomes. Furthermore, most of the currently investigated XR-supported mindfulness interactions are limited to vocally guided meditations within nature-inspired virtual environments. While an analysis of empirical research on those systems did not reveal differences in mindfulness compared to non-mediated mindfulness practices, various design proposals illustrate that XR has the potential to provide interactive and body-based innovations for mindfulness practice. We propose a structured approach for future work to specify and further explore the potential of XR as mindfulness-support. The resulting framework provides design guidelines for XR-based mindfulness support based on the elements and psychological mechanisms of XR interactions.}, language = {en} } @article{WienrichLatoschik2021, author = {Wienrich, Carolin and Latoschik, Marc Erich}, title = {eXtended Artificial Intelligence: New Prospects of Human-AI Interaction Research}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {2}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2021.686783}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260296}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Artificial Intelligence (AI) covers a broad spectrum of computational problems and use cases. Many of those implicate profound and sometimes intricate questions of how humans interact or should interact with AIs. Moreover, many users or future users do have abstract ideas of what AI is, significantly depending on the specific embodiment of AI applications. Human-centered-design approaches would suggest evaluating the impact of different embodiments on human perception of and interaction with AI. An approach that is difficult to realize due to the sheer complexity of application fields and embodiments in reality. However, here XR opens new possibilities to research human-AI interactions. The article's contribution is twofold: First, it provides a theoretical treatment and model of human-AI interaction based on an XR-AI continuum as a framework for and a perspective of different approaches of XR-AI combinations. It motivates XR-AI combinations as a method to learn about the effects of prospective human-AI interfaces and shows why the combination of XR and AI fruitfully contributes to a valid and systematic investigation of human-AI interactions and interfaces. Second, the article provides two exemplary experiments investigating the aforementioned approach for two distinct AI-systems. The first experiment reveals an interesting gender effect in human-robot interaction, while the second experiment reveals an Eliza effect of a recommender system. Here the article introduces two paradigmatic implementations of the proposed XR testbed for human-AI interactions and interfaces and shows how a valid and systematic investigation can be conducted. In sum, the article opens new perspectives on how XR benefits human-centered AI design and development.}, language = {en} } @article{WienrichCarolus2021, author = {Wienrich, Carolin and Carolus, Astrid}, title = {Development of an Instrument to Measure Conceptualizations and Competencies About Conversational Agents on the Example of Smart Speakers}, series = {Frontiers in Computer Science}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Computer Science}, doi = {10.3389/fcomp.2021.685277}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260198}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The concept of digital literacy has been introduced as a new cultural technique, which is regarded as essential for successful participation in a (future) digitized world. Regarding the increasing importance of AI, literacy concepts need to be extended to account for AI-related specifics. The easy handling of the systems results in increased usage, contrasting limited conceptualizations (e.g., imagination of future importance) and competencies (e.g., knowledge about functional principles). In reference to voice-based conversational agents as a concrete application of AI, the present paper aims for the development of a measurement to assess the conceptualizations and competencies about conversational agents. In a first step, a theoretical framework of "AI literacy" is transferred to the context of conversational agent literacy. Second, the "conversational agent literacy scale" (short CALS) is developed, constituting the first attempt to measure interindividual differences in the "(il) literate" usage of conversational agents. 29 items were derived, of which 170 participants answered. An explanatory factor analysis identified five factors leading to five subscales to assess CAL: storage and transfer of the smart speaker's data input; smart speaker's functional principles; smart speaker's intelligent functions, learning abilities; smart speaker's reach and potential; smart speaker's technological (surrounding) infrastructure. Preliminary insights into construct validity and reliability of CALS showed satisfying results. Third, using the newly developed instrument, a student sample's CAL was assessed, revealing intermediated values. Remarkably, owning a smart speaker did not lead to higher CAL scores, confirming our basic assumption that usage of systems does not guarantee enlightened conceptualizations and competencies. In sum, the paper contributes to the first insights into the operationalization and understanding of CAL as a specific subdomain of AI-related competencies.}, language = {en} } @article{WienrichReitelbachCarolus2021, author = {Wienrich, Carolin and Reitelbach, Clemens and Carolus, Astrid}, title = {The Trustworthiness of Voice Assistants in the Context of Healthcare Investigating the Effect of Perceived Expertise on the Trustworthiness of Voice Assistants, Providers, Data Receivers, and Automatic Speech Recognition}, series = {Frontiers in Computer Science}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Computer Science}, doi = {10.3389/fcomp.2021.685250}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260209}, year = {2021}, abstract = {As an emerging market for voice assistants (VA), the healthcare sector imposes increasing requirements on the users' trust in the technological system. To encourage patients to reveal sensitive data requires patients to trust in the technological counterpart. In an experimental laboratory study, participants were presented a VA, which was introduced as either a "specialist" or a "generalist" tool for sexual health. In both conditions, the VA asked the exact same health-related questions. Afterwards, participants assessed the trustworthiness of the tool and further source layers (provider, platform provider, automatic speech recognition in general, data receiver) and reported individual characteristics (disposition to trust and disclose sexual information). Results revealed that perceiving the VA as a specialist resulted in higher trustworthiness of the VA and of the provider, the platform provider and automatic speech recognition in general. Furthermore, the provider's trustworthiness affected the perceived trustworthiness of the VA. Presenting both a theoretical line of reasoning and empirical data, the study points out the importance of the users' perspective on the assistant. In sum, this paper argues for further analyses of trustworthiness in voice-based systems and its effects on the usage behavior as well as the impact on responsible design of future technology.}, language = {en} }