Trust Me on This One: Conforming to Conversational Assistants

A non-randomized feasibility study of a voice assistant for parents to support their children's mental health

Background

Mental disorders affect one in seven Australian children and although effective, evidenced based treatments exist, there is a critical shortage of mental health clinicians which has created a "treatment gap." Artificial intelligence has the potential to address the high prevalence rates of mental disorders within overburdened mental health systems.

Methods

This was a non-randomized feasibility study to evaluate the novel application of voice technology to an evidence-based parenting intervention designed to support children's mental health. We deployed an Amazon Alexa app to parents recruited from the community (N = 55) and to parents with children receiving psychological treatment (N = 4). Parents from the community used the app independently whereas parents from the clinical group used the app in conjunction with attending a six-week parenting program. The primary outcome measure, feasibility was assessed in terms of acceptability, via recruitment and retention rates, quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews.

Results

In the community group, the recruitment rate was 23.8% and the retention rate 49.1%. In the clinical group, all 6 families approached for recruitment agreed to participate and 4 out of 6 completed the trial. Parents attending the parenting program spent on average, three times longer using the app than parents from the community. Overall, parents reported that the app contained easy-to-understand information on parenting, and that they could see the potential of voice technology to learn and practice parenting skills. Parents also faced several challenges, including difficulties with installation and interactions with the app and expressed privacy concerns related to voice technology. Further, parents reported that the voices used within the app sounded monotone and robotic.

Conclusion

We offer specific recommendations that could foster a better voice assistant user experience for parents to support their children's mental health. The app is highly scalable and has the potential to addresses many of the barriers faced by parents who attempt to access traditional parenting interventions.

Bonding with a Couchsurfing Robot: The Impact of Common Locus on Human-Robot Bonding In-the-wild

Due to an increased presence of robots in human-inhabited environments, we observe a growing body of examples in which humans show behavior that is indicative of strong social engagement towards robots that do not possess any life-like realism in appearance or behavior. In response, we focus on the under-explored concept of a common locus as a relevant driver for a robot passing a social threshold. The key principle of common locus is that sharing place and time with a robotic artifact functions as an important catalyst for a perception of shared experiences, which in turn leads to bonding. We present BlockBots, minimal cube-shaped robotic artifacts that are deployed in an unsupervised, open-ended and in-the-field experimental setting aimed to explore the relevance of this concept. Participants host the BlockBot in their domestic environment before passing it on, without necessarily knowing they are taking part in an experiment. Qualitative data suggest that participants make identity and mind attributions to the BlockBot. People that actively maintain a common locus with BlockBot by taking it with them when changing location, on trips and during outdoor activities, project more of these attributes than others.