AUTHOR=El Kamali Mira , Angelini Leonardo , Lalanne Denis , Abou Khaled Omar , Mugellini Elena 

TITLE=Older adults' perspectives on multimodal interaction with a conversational virtual coach

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Computer Science

VOLUME=Volume 5 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/computer-science/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2023.1125895

DOI=10.3389/fcomp.2023.1125895

ISSN=2624-9898

ABSTRACT=The use of multiple interfaces may improve the perception of a stronger relationship between a conversational virtual coach and older adults. The purpose of this paper is to show the effect of output combinations (single-interface (chatbot, tangible coach), multi-interface (assignment, redundant-complementary)) of two distinct conversational agent interfaces (chatbot and tangible coach) on the eCoach-user relationship (closeness, commitement, complementarity) and the older adults' feeling of social presence of the eCoach. Our study was conducted with two different study settings: an online web survey and a face to face experiment. Our online study with 59 seniors shows that the output modes in multi-interface redundant-complementary manner significantly improves the eCoach-user relationship and social presence of the eCoach compared to only using single-interfaces outputs. Whereas in our face to face experiment with 15 seniors, significant results were found only in terms of higher social presence of multi-interface redundantcomplementary manner compared to chatbot only. We also investigated the effect of each study design on our results, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.