Related papers: The SPACE THEA Project
The development of conversational agents (CAs) has shown strong potential in supporting mental health through dialogue. While many studies focus on CAs for individual psychological care, research on agents designed for couples facing…
Driven by ongoing improvements in machine learning, chatbots have increasingly grown from experimental interface prototypes to reliable and robust tools for process automation. Building on these advances, companies have identified various…
In contrast to manned missions, the application of autonomous robots for space exploration missions decreases the safety concerns of the exploration missions while extending the exploration distance since returning transportation is not…
Service and assistive robots are increasingly being deployed in dynamic social environments; however, ensuring transparent and explainable interactions remains a significant challenge. This paper presents a multimodal explainability module…
Speech is a natural interface for humans to interact with robots. Yet, aligning a robot's voice to its appearance is challenging due to the rich vocabulary of both modalities. Previous research has explored a few labels to describe robots…
Wearable AI is often designed as always-available, yet continuous availability can conflict with how people work and socialize, creating discomfort around privacy, disruption, and unclear system boundaries. This paper explores episodic use…
Despite the proliferation of explainable AI (XAI) methods, little is understood about end-users' explainability needs and behaviors around XAI explanations. To address this gap and contribute to understanding how explainability can support…
It has recently become feasible to run personal digital assistants on phones and other personal devices. In this paper we describe a design for a natural language understanding system that runs on device. In comparison to a server-based…
Advanced digital assistants can significantly enhance task performance, reduce user burden, and provide personalized guidance to improve users' abilities. However, the development of such intelligent digital assistants presents a formidable…
Our goal is to model and experimentally assess trust evolution to predict future beliefs and behaviors of human-robot teams in dynamic environments. Research suggests that maintaining trust among team members in a human-robot team is vital…
The concept of a Human-AI team has gained increasing attention in recent years. For effective collaboration between humans and AI teammates, proactivity is crucial for close coordination and effective communication. However, the design of…
In recent years, artificial intelligence has developed in a variety of fields and is now integrated into many aspects of our daily lives. This includes AI speakers,communication robots, and other interactive systems. We are interested in AI…
To improve user experience, Alexa now allows users to consent to data sharing via voice rather than directing them to the companion smartphone app. While verbal consent mechanisms for voice assistants (VAs) can increase usability, they can…
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…
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…
SARA integrates Eye Tracking and state-of-the-art large language models in a mixed reality framework to enhance the reading experience by providing personalized assistance in real-time. By tracking eye movements, SARA identifies the text…
We present a novel approach for generating plausible verbal interactions between virtual human-like agents and user avatars in shared virtual environments. Sense-Plan-Ask, or SPA, extends prior work in propositional planning and natural…
The concept of an AI assistant for task guidance is rapidly shifting from a science fiction staple to an impending reality. Such a system is inherently complex, requiring models for perceptual grounding, attention, and reasoning, an…
A toolbox for creation and rendering of dynamic virtual acoustic environments (TASCAR) that allows direct user interaction was developed for application in hearing aid research and audiology. This technical paper describes the general…
Ambiguity and noise in natural language instructions create a significant barrier towards adopting autonomous systems into safety critical workflows involving humans and machines. In this paper, we propose to build on recent advances in…