Designing Conversational Interfaces To Feel Better

PAUL SAS [email protected]

MOTIVATION ENGINEERS

DESIGNING CONVERSATIONAL BOTS TO FEEL BETTER

PAUL SAS [email protected]

MOTIVATION ENGINEERS

Noisebridge 05.10.02017

2 © Motivation Engineers

overviewNoisebridge 05.10.02017

Emotions- What Are They For? How Are They Measured?

Personable Bots are: Polite Intuitive Empowering

Engineering Considerations - NoiseBridge Brains Share Their Feelings Polite

Flattering On-My-Team Reflect Back My State

Cultivate Curiosity Humorous Actionable Trustworthy


WHEN YOU FEEL IT, YOU (USUALLY) KNOW & SHOW IT

Emotionsare complex,

multi-dimensional, and hugely important

Attention

compels, focuses, resists intentional override

Cognitive

awareness, attributions, goals, interpretations

Self-awareness of motor expression

Personality Type

Unconscious perception

Motor expression face, body, voice

Autonomichormonal and visceral

Memories

Cultural Appropriateness

WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic


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CIRCUIT OF EMOTIONS THOUGHTS BEHAVIOR

E B

T

T H O U G H T SWhat we THINK affects

how we act and feel

E M OT I O N SHow we FEEL affects what we think and do

B E H AV I O RWhat we DO affects

how we think and feel


InteroceptionThe brain’s integration of sensory signals from the body to produce the experience of this body as mine (sense of body-ownership)


MULTIPLE WAYS TO MODEL

Ekman’s 6 Basic Emotions

Happy Sad Fear

Anger Surprise Disgust

Intensity & Valence



COGNITIVE APPRAISAL

ResponsibilityWho is to blame?

ControlAm I the Boss?

Cope by seeking slivers of control over outcomes

LegitimacyAm I getting what

I'm owed? Fair/deserved or unfair

Effort How hard do I have to work?

Energy demand minimized to dodge an unpleasant emotion

AttentionAttention attracted

over time. Focusing Illusion

PleasantnessHow good do I feel right now?

Pleasing, attractive aspects

Obstacle Is anything frustrating

my will?Blocking goals

interpreted as personal

CertaintyConfidence

about outcome



Emotions Are Goal-Oriented

EVENTYes

Emotion

Goal Relevant?

Ego Involvement?

Yes

Positive Emotion

Happiness

Pride

Love

Not Relevant

Boosts self-esteem

Mutual Affection

Negative Emotion

Anger, Shame

Fear/ Anxiety

Sadness

Damages self-esteem

Threat to self

Loss to self

No No Emotion

Goal Congruent? No


We Instinctively AnthropomorphizeOne of my favorite Twitter feeds



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Fools for a Good Story

Michotte The Perception of Causality http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/michotte-demo.swf



http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/michotte-demo.swf

Building a better Eliza

Building a better Eliza (1966 computer program)

ELIZA mimicked a therapist by returning whatever user typed with a question

> How does that make you feel?

> Tell me more about …

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Microsoft “Clippy” had much more computational intelligence, but it only directed attention to Clippy



Low Fi representations can still deliver the right feel

Oculus Rift is leveraging this

Instead of high fidelity realism, designers invest in the most powerful cues for sociality

Schematic, sketchy, yet in many important ways, a cartoon gets treated like a person



Pets are another compelling example of how attachment and relationships do not depend on human-level intelligence

Spaniels’ extreme eagerness to please; cats at the other pole




Self-reports (Many Different Instruments) Participants rate overall experience Second by second changes might using rating dial

Subjective crowdsourced ratings Judges (e.g., MechTurk or Leapforce) identify/rate emotion in content

AI / Machine Learning for text Large data sets can be trained to recognize

Pupil dilation Changes in pupil size show cognitive demand

Facial coding Automatic coding of facial responses

Voice Expressive Analyze words used, and voice pitch and volume

Heart rate Measure changes in heart beat rate

Skin response Measure changes in skin conductivity (sweating)

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METHODS FOR MEASURING EMOTIONSNoisebridge 05.10.02017

Engineering Emotional Chatbots

Emotional Chatting Machine


https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.01074.pdf


Politeness Counts

Expectations strongly influence the actual experience Framing at outset defines what a customer should expect

Deflect blame from me Missing a goal or overspending risks harsh feedback

Focus on productive response, rather than assigning any fault

Face-saving workarounds include indirect requests hedges deference expressions of gratitude Apologies

Avoid the awkward implication that the user has somehow failed.

Never make me feel as if I’m in the wrong (ignorant, limited or less than powerful)



Alan Cooper’s 14 Principles of Polite Apps (1999)

Polite software: gives instant gratification is taciturn about its personal problems is responsive is interested in me stays focused is well-informed is perceptive is self-confident is fudge-able (handles imprecision) is trustworthy is deferential to me anticipates my needs is forthcoming has common sense


http://www.testingspot.net/archived/ac0699.pdf


Intuitive Smart Defaults

Smart defaults dramatically increases compliance

Default choice lowers cognitive load

Where possible, present options which foreground one path as the default

Present one option as the automatic path Social norms (most people choose X) can add further motivational force

My conversation with a chatbot should never feel confusing



Intuitive from the First MomentNoisebridge 05.10.02017


Empower MeControl is crucial to Me

Offering small modifications increases confidence and willingness to rely upon recommendations

“Illusion of Control” has measurable impact on value. When a lottery ticket is personally picked out of a hat, people value it far more highly than if it is picked for them.

Algorithm aversion: People judge an algorithm’s mistakes much more harshly than the errors of humans.



Flatter MeIf a chatbot can’t say anything smart, at least say something nice

Even praise tagged as automated boilerplate in Cliff Nass’s lab, it still improved the user experience.

Even without overt praise: Just take all blame for difficult interactions or mistakes.



Flatter MeNoisebridge 05.10.02017


Can We Really Be Helped by ScriptsREBT slogans -> CBT -> DBT

Other ways we change our feelings

Songs Stories Plays Motivational Posters



On-my-team

Strengthen my sense of affiliation Increase interdependence by explaining how it’s expressly taking steps motivated by my goals.

HMW make Microsoft Clippy less annoying? Clippy volunteered, in alliance with the user, to bring their complaint straight to Microsoft’s programmers.

Chatbots must convey how they are in alliance with my goals.



On-my-teamNoisebridge 05.10.02017


Reflect Back to Me

Alignment between my emotion and the computer’s mood improves the experience

Sensitivity should mirror my attentional context

A personable bot reflects my current state & how our feelings match.



Cultivate curiosity

“We are more pained by ignorance than we are pleased by instruction” - Sam Johnson

Information, no matter how potentially useful, can not excite interest by itself

Pose questions, rather than simply report

info, to excite a cognitive appetite

Do you want the bot to teach or the user to learn?


The Wick in the Candle of Learning Epistemic Curiosity Activates Reward Circuitry and Enhances Memory George Loewenstein and co-authors


HumorPlayful, pleasant surprises convey a personal voice.



Actionable

Tests have proved that combining these 4 components dramatically boosts participation in voting

Have a specific plan (location + precise time + steps) Failure should not be attributed to motivation

Expectations about others – Everybody’s doing X

Identity – You’re the kind of person who does X

Accountability – You can expect to be checked-in-on afterwards to discuss the experience



TrustReliably delivering value builds my trust in the chatbot

Trust cashes in on all the foregoing

Mutual reciprocity means give to get

Surface work that’s being done for customer Labor transparency: Being made aware of how an algorithm has expended effort, appreciation, enjoyment, and valuation of the outcome goes up



Personable BotsBayCHI 05.09.02017

Polite

Intuitive

Empowering Flattering

On-My-Team

Reflect Back

Curious

Humorous

Actionable

Trustworthy

PIE FOR CHAT


TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPSBayCHI 05.09.02017

E.G. 12 BRAND ARCHETYPES

Engineering with EARLNoisebridge 05.10.02017

http://emotion-research.net/projects/humaine/earl/proposal



Engineering with EARLNoisebridge 05.10.02017


A category set consisting of 10 emotion classes (plus neutral) as used in the annotation of the AIBO database, described in: Batliner et al. (2004). "You stupid tin box" - Children interacting with the AIBO robot. LREC 2004, pp.171-174. </xsd:documentation> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:NMTOKEN"> <xsd:enumeration value="joyful"/> <xsd:enumeration value="surprised"/> <xsd:enumeration value="neutral"/> <xsd:enumeration value="emphatic"/> <xsd:enumeration value="helpless"/> <xsd:enumeration value="touchy"/> <xsd:enumeration value="angry"/> <xsd:enumeration value="motherese"/> <xsd:enumeration value="bored"/> <xsd:enumeration value="reprimanding"/> <xsd:enumeration value="rest"/>

<xsd:attribute name="suddenness" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="familiarity" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="predictability" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="intrinsic_pleasantness" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="relevance_self_concerns" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="relevance_relationship_concerns" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="relevance_social_order_concerns" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="goal_outcome_probability" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="consonant_with_expectation" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="goal_conduciveness" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="goal_urgency" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="cause_agent_self" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="cause_agent_other" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="cause_motive_intentional" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="event_controllability" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/> <xsd:attribute name="agent_power" type="xsd:float" use="optional"/>




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Designing Conversational Interfaces To Feel Better

Technology

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