Related papers: Nora: The Well-Being Coach
For people with noise sensitivity, everyday soundscapes can be overwhelming. Existing tools such as active noise cancellation reduce discomfort by suppressing the entire acoustic environment, often at the cost of awareness of surrounding…
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…
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected lives of people from different countries for almost two years. The changes on lifestyles due to the pandemic may cause psychosocial stressors for individuals, and have a potential to lead to mental health…
Social robots and conversational agents are being explored as supports for wellbeing, goal-setting, and everyday self-regulation. While prior work highlights their potential to motivate and guide users, much of the evidence relies on…
The state of being alone can have a substantial impact on our lives, though experiences with time alone diverge significantly among individuals. Psychologists distinguish between the concept of solitude, a positive state of voluntary…
Virtual agents have shown promising potential in mental health applications, but current research has predominantly focused on contexts outside of traditional therapy sessions. This paper examines the impact of a virtual supporter in remote…
College students face well-being challenges driven by academic pressure, financial strain, and social expectations. While campus counseling and student-success programs offer support, access is often limited by stigma, waitlists, and…
The ways of communication and social interactions are changing. Web users are becoming increasingly engaged with Online Social Networks (OSN), which has a significant impact on the relationship mechanisms between individuals and…
Providing timely support and intervention is crucial in mental health settings. As the need to engage youth comfortable with texting increases, mental health providers are exploring and adopting text-based media such as chatbots,…
Anonymity in social media platforms keeps users hidden behind a keyboard. This absolves users of responsibility, allowing them to engage in online rage, hate speech, and other text-based toxicity that harms online well-being. Recent…
In this work, we present a new dataset and a computational strategy for a digital coach that aims to guide users in practicing the protocols of self-attachment therapy. Our framework augments a rule-based conversational agent with a…
Loneliness and stress are prevalent among young adults and are linked to significant psychological and health-related consequences. Social robots may offer a promising avenue for emotional support, especially when considering the ongoing…
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a severe mental strain on people in general, and on young people in particular. Online support forums offer opportunities for peer-to-peer health support, which can ease pressure on professional and…
This paper outlines the EMPATHIC Research & Innovation project, which aims to research, innovate, explore and validate new interaction paradigms and plat-forms for future generations of Personalized Virtual Coaches to assist elderly people…
Poor lifestyle represents a health risk factor and is the leading cause of morbidity and chronic conditions. The impact of poor lifestyle can be significantly altered by individual behavior change. Although the current shift in healthcare…
Recent years have seen an increasing number of applications that have a natural language interface, either in the form of chatbots or via personal assistants such as Alexa (Amazon), Google Assistant, Siri (Apple), and Cortana (Microsoft).…
The COVID-19 pandemic has created many problems, especially in people's social lives. There has been increasing isolation and economic hardships since the beginning of the pandemic for people all over the world. Quarantines and lockdowns…
Coaches are vital for effective collaboration, but cost and resource constraints often limit their availability during real-world tasks. This limitation poses serious challenges in life-critical domains that rely on effective teamwork, such…
This paper presents a description and evaluation of the ROC Speak system, a platform that allows ubiquitous access to communication skills training. ROC Speak (available at rocspeak.com) enables anyone to go to a website, record a video,…
The EMPATHIC project aimed to design an emotionally expressive virtual coach capable of engaging healthy seniors to improve well-being and promote independent aging. One of the core aspects of the system is its human sensing capabilities,…