{"id":2624,"date":"2015-05-23T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2015-05-23T04:23:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T08:23:16","slug":"virtual-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2015\/05\/virtual-therapist\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/money\/2015\/05\/20\/407978049\/how-a-machine-learned-to-spot-depression\" target=\"_blank\">This NPR story<\/a> alerted to the newest kind of psychological therapist being built by the the <a href=\"http:\/\/ict.usc.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies<\/a> (ICT), in conjunction with the Pentagon.\u00a0 I say <em>built<\/em> because &#8220;Ellie,&#8221; the experimental therapist, is not a person, but rather a computer.\u00a0 In this instance &#8220;she&#8221; is being used to interview veterans and screen them for signs of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n<p>Ellie works by asking the research subject questions and recording\/analyzing his or her responses, as shown in this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ejczMs6b1Q4\" target=\"_blank\">demonstration video<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ejczMs6b1Q4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ellie focuses not on what the interviewee says, but on his or her non-verbal cues,\u00a0 using an interactive technology called multisense:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Multisense automatically tracks and analyzes in real-time facial expressions, body posture, acoustic features, linguistic patterns and higher-level behavior descriptors (e.g. attention, fidgeting). From these signals and behaviors, indicators of psychological distress are inferred to inform directly the healthcare provider or the virtual human.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Studies have shown that Ellie interprets some of these expressions quite well.\u00a0 Reportedly she asses the genuineness of a smile, for example, as well as a human psychologist.<\/p>\n<p>This is a nifty technological achievement, certainly.\u00a0 But what&#8217;s just as interesting to me as the computer capability is people&#8217;s willingness to interact with the computer.\u00a0 Many people not only carry on the somewhat awkward conversation with the machine, but they actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/california\/la-me-virtual-interviewer-usc-20150403-story.html\" target=\"_blank\">share more than they would with a human counterpart<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;People opened up more to the virtual human than to a real person. They said they felt less judged by the virtual human,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/ict.usc.edu\/profile\/gale-lucas\/\" target=\"_blank\">[ICT psychologist Gale] Lucas<\/a> said, even though they knew that their answers would be recorded and viewed later by workers in a lab.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s about what&#8217;s happening in the moment \u2014 having a safe place to talk,&#8221; she added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why are interviewees more open when talking to a computer?\u00a0 An article in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0747563214002647\" target=\"_blank\">Computers in Human Behavior<\/a><\/em> elaborates:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>participants who believed they were interacting with a computer reported lower fear of self-disclosure, lower impression management, displayed their sadness more intensely, and were rated by observers as more willing to disclose. These results suggest that automated VHs\u00a0[virtual humans] can help overcome a significant barrier to obtaining truthful patient information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Lower &#8220;impression management&#8221;?\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Impression_management\" target=\"_blank\">That is<\/a> the &#8220;goal-directed conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Social_influence\" target=\"_blank\">influence<\/a> the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Perception\" target=\"_blank\">perceptions<\/a> of other people . . . they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction.&#8221;\u00a0 In other words, interviewees are less concerned about being judged by the machine, and express themselves in a less inhibited manner.<\/p>\n<p>Computers can also facilitate communication by being better listeners.\u00a0 They can be programmed not to interrupt the speaker.\u00a0 And they avoid distracting body language&#8211;e.g., looking around, checking the phone, and yawning.\u00a0 Today it&#8217;s challenging finding a human who gives such undivided attention.<\/p>\n<p>At any rate, given continuous technological advancements, we&#8217;re sure to chat with more virtual humans in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2015\/05\/virtual-therapist\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Virtual Therapist\"><p>This NPR story alerted to the newest kind of psychological therapist being built by the the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), in conjunction with the Pentagon.\u00a0 I say built because &#8220;Ellie,&#8221; the experimental therapist, is not a person, but rather a computer.\u00a0 In this instance &#8220;she&#8221; is being used to interview [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2627,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions\/2627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}