Related papers: Alexa Depression and Anxiety Self-tests: A Prelimi…
The home voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa have become increasingly popular due to many interesting voice-activated services provided through special applications called skills. These skills, though useful, have also introduced new…
Stress is an inevitable part of day-to-day life yet many find themselves unable to manage it themselves, particularly when professional or peer support are not always readily available. As self-care becomes increasingly vital for mental…
Active listening is a well-known skill applied in human communication to build intimacy and elicit self-disclosure to support a wide variety of cooperative tasks. When applied to conversational UIs, active listening from machines can also…
Online, people often recount their experiences turning to conversational AI agents (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot) for mental health support -- going so far as to replace their therapists. These anecdotes suggest that AI agents have great…
As voice-based Conversational Assistants (CAs), including Alexa, Siri, Google Home, have become commonly embedded in households, many children now routinely interact with Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. It is important to research…
Growing up in an artificial intelligence-filled world, with Siri and Amazon Alexa often within arm's - or speech's - reach, could have significant impact on children. Conversational agents could influence how students anthropomorphize…
Conversational systems use spoken language to interact with their users. Although conversational systems, such as Amazon Alexa, are becoming common and afford interesting functionalities, there is little known about the issues users of…
Many people suffer from mental health problems but not everyone seeks professional help or has access to mental health care. AI chatbots have increasingly become a go-to for individuals who either have mental disorders or simply want…
In this work, we provide an extensive part-of-speech analysis of the discourse of social media users with depression. Research in psychology revealed that depressed users tend to be self-focused, more preoccupied with themselves and…
Despite growing interest in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) for mental well-being, prior work using immersive interventions to teach mental health skills has largely focused on calming or abstract settings. As a result, little is…
This study investigates clinicians' perceptions and attitudes toward an assistive artificial intelligence (AI) system that employs a speech-based explainable ML algorithm for detecting depression. The AI system detects depression from…
Background: Many people who could benefit from therapy do not receive it. Conversational AI is increasingly used for mental health support, yet it is unclear which barriers AI helps mitigate. We examined whether evaluation-sensitive…
Development in digital technologies has continuously reshaped how individuals seek and receive social and emotional support. While online platforms and communities have long served this need, the increased integration of general-purpose…
Smart home devices have found their way through people's homes as well as hearts. One such smart device is Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa is a voice-controlled application that is rapidly gaining popularity. Alexa was primarily used for…
Online mental health support communities have grown in recent years for providing accessible mental and emotional health support through volunteer counselors. Despite millions of people participating in chat support on these platforms, the…
Objective: This paper introduces a patient simulator for scalable, automated evaluation of healthcare conversational agents, generating realistic, controllable interactions that systematically vary across medical, linguistic, and behavioral…
Alexa Skills are used for a variety of daily routines and purposes, but little research has focused on a key part of many people's daily lives: their pets. We present a systematic review categorizing the purposes of 88 Alexa Skills aimed at…
Conversational agents powered by large language models (LLM) have increasingly been utilized in the realm of mental well-being support. However, the implications and outcomes associated with their usage in such a critical field remain…
Mental health issues, particularly depressive disorders, present significant challenges in contemporary society, necessitating the development of effective automated diagnostic methods. This paper introduces the Agent Mental Clinic (AMC), a…
Modern conversational agents such as Alexa and Google Assistant represent significant progress in speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis. But as these agents have grown more realistic, concerns have been…