Research Publications

Behavior & Information Technology | 2021 | DOI:10.1080/0144929X.2021.2006787

ABSTRACT: The alteration of an individual’s lifestyle and the adoption of healthy behaviours have been shown to be effective in combating a majority of the major symptoms of depression. While there are several mHealth applications that use behaviour change to reduce depressive symptoms, they are often not grounded in behaviour change theory and display a lack of understanding regarding the specific factors that lead to behaviour change. Therefore, there is a need to test innovative strategies to tackle the issue. One such strategy is the use of behaviour change theories to design mHealth applications that use persuasive prompts to assist in ‘prompting’ the user to adopt healthier behaviours. In this paper, we present the design of persuasive prompts and an mHealth application to induce behavioural change, followed by the results of two studies: (i) an acceptability study that tested the acceptability of the persuasive prompts and (ii) a usability study of the mHealth application. The results show that there is a significant difference in which behaviour change theories users prefer based on their level of depression and that overall, users have a positive perception of the application.

ACM | 2021 | DOI:10.1145/3459990.3460518

ABSTRACT: The Global South is a reference to the underdeveloped regions of the world and though it is often synonymous with the marginalisation of people through living standards and access to resources, not everyone falls under this margin. The children in the margins in the Global South encompasses those with little or no access to modern communication, technologies and academic resources. This spectrum also includes children with learning and developmental disabilities, mental and physical health issues and hostile home or school environments. Marginalization in the Global South places a significant portion of the children at an elevated risks of inequality from lack of access, knowledge and training of ICTs to digital exclusion. Moreover, the recent global pandemic has exacerbated these challenges. This workshop aims at tracing research lines and questions around methodological and technological in designing tools to support children on the margins in the Global South.

International Journal of Humanoid Robotics | 2020 | DOI:10.1142/S0219843620300019

ABSTRACT: Recent studies suggest that robot-based interventions are potentially effective in diagnosis and therapy of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), demonstrating that robots can improve the engagement abilities and attention in autistic children. While methodological approaches vary significantly in these studies and are not unified yet, researchers often develop similar solutions based on similar conceptual and practical premises. We systematically review the latest robot-intervention techniques in ASD research (18 research papers), comparing multiple dimensions of technological and experimental implementation. In particular, we focus on sensor-based assessment systems for automated and unbiased quantitative assessments of children’s engagement and attention fluctuations during interaction with robots. We examine related technologies, experimental and methodological setups, and the empirical investigations they support. We aim to assess the strengths and limitations of such approaches in a diagnostic context and to evaluate their potential in increasing our knowledge of autism and in supporting the development of social skills and attentional dispositions in ASD children. Using our acquired results from the overview, we propose a set of social cues and interaction techniques that can be thought to be most beneficial in robot-related autism intervention.

Springer | 2019 | DOI:10.1007/98-3-030-29390-1_7

ABSTRACT: In recent years, there has been a growing concern regarding the increased occurrence of mental health disorders amongst the population worldwide and its debilitating effects on not only the individual suffering from it but also on the economy. Depression, being the most prevalent mental illness, urges the need to test different methodologies to try and tackle the issue. One such method is the adoption of persuasive behavioral change models in prompts for mHealth applications to assist in ‘prompting’ the user to adopt healthier behaviors. However, the acceptability of such persuasive prompts along with the selection of behavioral change models most suitable for people suffering through depression is unknown. In this work, we present the results of a cross- sectional acceptability study that tested the acceptability of persuasive prompts through two types of users: ones suffering from depression and ones without any depressive symptoms. In a study with 29 individuals without depression and 21 individuals with depression, we observed the differences between the results of both types of users and were able to show that not only were the prompts accepted by both users, but they have the potential to induce behavioral change.