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AGNES: Connecting people in a multimodal way

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Abstract

Western societies are confronted with a number of challenges caused by the increasing number of older citizens. One important aspect is the need and wish of older people to live as long as possible in their own home and maintain an independent life. As people grew older, their social networks disperse, with friends and families moving to other parts of town, other cities or even countries. Additionally, people become less mobile with age, leading to less active participation in societal life. Combined, this normal, age-related development leads to increased loneliness and social isolation of older people, with negative effects on mental and physical health of those people. In the AGNES project, a home-based system has been developed that allows connecting elderly with their families, friends and other significant people over the Internet. As most older people have limited experience with computers and often special requirements on technology, one focus of AGNES was to develop with the users novel technological means for interacting with their social network. The resulting system uses ambient displays, tangible interfaces and wearable devices providing ubiquitous options for interaction with the network, and secondary sensors for additionally generating carefully chosen information on the person to be relayed to significant persons. Evaluations show that the chosen modalities for interaction are well adopted by the users. Further it was found that use of the AGNES system had positive effects on the mental state of the users, compared to the control group without the technology.

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Notes

  1. Emotion analyser developed by CanControls, http://www.cancontrols.com/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 16c, 8010 , Graz, Ausria

    Christian Peter, Martin Schröter & Hyosun Kim

  2. Fraunhofer IGD, Joachim-Jungius-Str. 11, 18059 , Rostock, Germany

    Christian Peter & Gerald Bieber

  3. Ambertree Assistance Technologies, Hirtenweg 47a, 18059 , Rostock, Germany

    Christian Peter

  4. Modernfamilies.net GmbH, Niedermayrweg 14, 4040 , Linz, Austria

    Andreas Kreiner

  5. Radiation Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Umeå University, 90187 , Umeå, Sweden

    Fredrik Öhberg

  6. Department of Informatics, Umeå University, 90187 , Umeå, Sweden

    Kei Hoshi, Eva L. Waterworth & John Waterworth

  7. Facultad de Psicologia, UNED, Madrid, Spain

    Soledad Ballesteros

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  1. Christian Peter
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  2. Andreas Kreiner
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  3. Martin Schröter
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  4. Hyosun Kim
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  5. Gerald Bieber
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  6. Fredrik Öhberg
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  7. Kei Hoshi
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  8. Eva L. Waterworth
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  9. John Waterworth
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  10. Soledad Ballesteros
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Correspondence to Christian Peter.

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Peter, C., Kreiner, A., Schröter, M. et al. AGNES: Connecting people in a multimodal way. J Multimodal User Interfaces 7, 229–245 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12193-013-0118-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12193-013-0118-z

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