Abstract
Internet-based guided self-therapy systems provide a novel method for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder patients to follow therapy at home with the assistance of a virtual coach. One of the main challenges for such a coach is assisting patients with recollecting their traumatic memories, a vital part of therapy. In this paper, an ontology-based question system capable of posing appropriate and personalized questions is presented. This method was tested in an experiment with non-patients (n = 24), where it was compared with a non-ontology-based system which did not provide personalization. Results show that people take more time answering questions with the ontology-based system and use more words describing properties, such as adjectives. This indicates that the ontology-based system facilitates more thoughtful and detailed memory-recollection.
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Acknowledgements
This work is part of the programme Virtual E-Coaching and Storytelling Technology for PTSD, which is financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (pr. nr. 314-99-104).
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Tielman, M., van Meggelen, M., Neerincx, M.A., Brinkman, WP. (2015). An Ontology-Based Question System for a Virtual Coach Assisting in Trauma Recollection. In: Brinkman, WP., Broekens, J., Heylen, D. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9238. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21996-7_2
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