Exploring Psycho-physiological Measures for the Design and Behavior of Socially-Aware Avatars in Ubicomp Environments

Abstract

Ubicomp environments pose many challenges due to their reliance on implicit input and their tendency to take actions on the user's behalf. Avatars can assist users by explaining the behaviour of this kind of environment and by assisting users in intervening and controlling the environment's behaviour. In this work, we intend to move beyond avatars that represent the user towards an avatar that serves as a mediator between the system and the user. We hope to achieve this goal by designing a socially-aware avatar that adapts its behavior according to the user’s current emotion inferred from his psycho-physiological measurements.