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User Modeling in Social Interaction with a Caring Agent

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User Modeling and Adaptation for Daily Routines

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

Ambient Intelligence solutions may provide a great opportunity for elder people to live longer at home. When assistance and care are delegated to the intelligence embedded in the environment, besides considering task-oriented response to the user needs, it is necessary to take into account the establishment of social relations. To this aim, it becomes crucial to model both the rational and the affective components of the user state of mind. In this chapter we mainly focus on the problem of modeling the cognitive and affective variables involved in the definition of a user model suitable for this domain. After providing an overlook of the state of the art, we report about our experience in designing NICA (as the name of the project Natural Interaction with a Caring Agent), a social agent acting as a virtual caregiver able to assist elderly people in a smart environment for taking care of both the physical and mental state of the users.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Bari, Via E. Orabona, 4, 70126, Bari, Italy

    Berardina De Carolis, Irene Mazzotta, Nicole Novielli & Sebastiano Pizzutilo

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  1. Berardina De Carolis
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  2. Irene Mazzotta
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  3. Nicole Novielli
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  4. Sebastiano Pizzutilo
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Correspondence to Berardina De Carolis .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Languages and Computer Sys, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Tulipán s/n, Móstoles, 28933, Madrid, Spain

    Estefanía Martín

  2. IIC-Knowledge Engineering Institute, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Tomas y Valiente 11, Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Pablo A. Haya

  3. Department of Computer Science and Engin, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Tomas y Valiente 11, Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Rosa M. Carro

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De Carolis, B., Mazzotta, I., Novielli, N., Pizzutilo, S. (2013). User Modeling in Social Interaction with a Caring Agent. In: Martín, E., Haya, P., Carro, R. (eds) User Modeling and Adaptation for Daily Routines. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4778-7_4

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