Designing judicious interactions for cognitive assistance: the acts of assistance approach

ABSTRACT

The completion of complex activities of daily living (ADL) like meal preparation is a key concept for achieving autonomous living. Due to cognitive impairments, some people need to be supported when performing ADL. In this paper, we present a technological approach to guide people with cognitive impairments to complete complex activities. The assistance is provided in the form of pervasive human-machine interactions (HMI), that encourage the person to complete some actions to settle the difficulty identified by the system. These HMI are called "acts of assistance". This approach was implemented in Archipel, a cognitive orthosis developed at the DOMUS Laboratory, University of Sherbrooke (Canada). An evaluation of the prototype was conducted around meal preparation activities, involving 12 people with intellectual disabilities. This study demonstrates that our approach is promising.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.2 Social Issues
          Subjects: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors, Theory

Keywords:
activity monitoring, assistance generation, cognitive assistance, pervasive HMI, speech-acts theory