Peter Bingley

Investigating the relationship between the personality of a robotic TV assistant and the level of user control

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a robotic TV assistant that helps users find a TV-programme that fits their interests. Questions that were addressed include: What personality do users prefer for the robotic TV-assistant? What level of control do they prefer? How do personality and the level of control relate to each other? Four prototypes were developed by combining two personalities and two levels of user control. In the high control condition, a speech-based command-and-control interaction style was used, whereas the interaction style in the low control condition consisted of speech-based system-initiative natural language dialogue. The results demonstrated an interaction between the effects of personality and level of control on user preferences. Overall, the most preferred combination was an extravert and friendly personality with low user control. Additionally, it was found that perceived level of control was influenced by the robots personality. This suggests that the robots personality can be used as a means to increase the amount of control that users perceive

Comparison of pulse wave velocity derived from accelerometer and reflective photo-plethysmography signals placed at the carotid and femoral artery

Carotid - femoral pulse wave velocity is an established measure to assess cardiovascular risk and an interesting surrogate parameter towards non-invasive continuous blood pressure inference. Due to progress in sensing technologies for wearable wrist worn sensors, there are low cost sensor combinations of photo-plethysmography and high fidelity accelerometers available offering access to pulse information from larger arteries complemented by blood volume changes in the superficial tissue. In this work we compare pulse wave velocities derived from accelerometer and reflective photo-plethysmography signals placed at the carotid and femoral artery. We discuss the different underlying physiological processes for the two sensing principles and present experimental results obtained in a study with healthy subjects.