Professional Documents
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2018-02-Council of Coaches
2018-02-Council of Coaches
Harm op den Akker1,2 , Rieks op den Akker3 , Tessa Beinema1,2 , Oresti Banos2 , Dirk Heylen3 ,
Björn Bedsted4 , Alison Pease5 , Catherine Pelachaud6 , Vicente Traver Salcedo7 , Sofoklis Kyriazakos8
and Hermie Hermens1,2
1 Roessingh Research and Development, Telemedicine Group, Enschede, The Netherlands
2 University of Twente, Department of Biomedical Signals and Systems, Enschede, The Netherlands
3 University of Twente, Department of Human Media Interaction, Enschede, The Netherlands
4 Danish Board of Technology Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark
5 University of Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom
6 CNRS - ISIR, Sorbonne University, Paris, France
7 ITACA, Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain
8 BTECH, Aarhus University, Herning, Denmark
Abstract: A modern way of life needs a modern way of coaching. Despite the proliferation of ICT solutions for per-
sonalized health care, there is still no easy way to provide older adults with integrated coaching services. In
this paper we introduce the concept of Council of Coaches — a radically new virtual coaching concept based
on multiple autonomous, embodied virtual coaches, which form together a personal council that fulfills the
needs of older adults in an integrated way. In this concept, coaching takes the form of an open dialog in which
clients co-construct together with a selected number of coaches their own plans to go for a healthier lifestyle.
Virtual coaches are presented to users by means of embodied conversational social characters. We discuss
technical and social challenges on the path towards realizing the Council of Coaches concept, a radically new
view of health coaching that involves the state of the art in human-computer interaction, natural dialogue, and
argumentation technology.
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Akker, H., Akker, R., Beinema, T., Banos, O., Heylen, D., Bedsted, B., Pease, A., Pelachaud, C., Salcedo, V., Kyriazakos, S. and Hermens, H.
Council of Coaches - A Novel Holistic Behavior Change Coaching Approach.
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2018), pages 219-226
ISBN: 978-989-758-299-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
ICT4AWE 2018 - 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health
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Council of Coaches - A Novel Holistic Behavior Change Coaching Approach
Coach: Have you considered trying to quit Bob: I am trying but find it difficult.
smoking, Bob?
Bob: None of your business.
End of story. Even if a user is willing to go along What this example portrays, is that even without
with the virtual coach, the technical limitations of any active participation of the user (Bob chooses to
machines understanding free-form natural language say nothing), the discussion can continue and provide
interaction severely complicates the ability of having some arguments and background on the topic. Then,
a meaningful, deep discussion about such topics. when the user is engaged, a predefined selectable ut-
Consider the following example: terance can indicate the stance of the user in the cur-
rent ongoing dialogue (Bob: “I am trying but find it
Coach: Have you considered trying to quit difficult”), allowing our COPD Coach, Ellis, to con-
smoking, Bob? tinue the dialogue with e.g. advice on how to ap-
Bob: Well eh, I guess the moment I walked proach the smoking cessation issue. This way, it is
out of my doctor’s door, I was well it possible to engage the user in a discussion about a
was quite a shock I tell you. personal issue without bearing on real-time natural
I heard about COPD before but it’s the
language understanding. Furthermore, the example
type of thing you hear about other peo-
ple you know? I put my hands in my illustrates some of the other underlying aims of the
pocket and felt the cigarette box, but project:
then yes I thought to myself, better not Immersive Dialogue — Creating a captivating di-
this time. Since then I have been smok- alogue, and unfolding stories between coaches
ing again on and off...
(Ben and Florence don’t seem to like each other
Coach: I did not understand your response.
now, but who knows how romance might find a
way?). Such stories unfolding over multiple in-
Again, end of story. Now, having a group dis- teractive session serve to further engage the user
cussion where the user participates in a session with his personal council.
where multiple virtual agents are present allows us to
State of Art Interactive Multi-Party Conversation
generate an interactive performance:
— Advancing the state of the art in multi-party
Ellis: Have you considered trying to quit dialogue systems by creating dynamic, personal-
smoking, Bob? ized dialogues that can be interrupted and driven
Ben: Quit smoking, quit drinking, quit doing by user responses.
all the fun things in life! Why don’t you
Multi-Domain Behavior Change Approach —
quit whining?
Florence: What a stupid thing to say, Ben! Next
Approaching behavior change in a particular
thing you’re going to tell us all about domain (e.g. smoking cessation) in a holistic
your grandfather who smoked all of his way by involving in this case diet (stop smoking
live and lived to be a 100 years old! positively affects taste/food experience), or
Ben: Well, for your information Flo- physical activity (stop smoking increases your
rence. . . My grandfather was a heavy capacity for doing sports).
smoker and he did turn out to be 94
years old, so there.
Richard: Florence, Ben, cut it out, this isn’t about
you or your grandfather, we are talking 3 RELATED WORK AND
about Bob, perhaps he has anything to
say here?
INSPIRATION
Bob: (Say nothing.)
The overall concept of the Council of Coaches is in-
Ellis: Well, you know that smoking does not
guarantee an early death. But Bob here spired by the 1996 video game Civilization II, de-
recently got diagnosed with COPD, a veloped and published by MicroProse (Civilization 2,
condition that is almost always caused 1996), in which an in game “High Council” of ad-
by long-term smoking. visors would help the player make decisions about
Ellis: Although it may not be easy, it is very strategic moves (see Figure 1). To the best of our
important to try and quit as a very first knowledge, no serious applications have ever been de-
step in dealing with this. veloped or researched that employ the use of a group
Ben: Sure, I guess, you are the expert.
of advisors to educate, motivate, and engage users in
Richard: And it has a positive effect on your
taste! Think about all the delicious
the health counseling, or in fact, any other domain.
things we could cook together and how Some examples of related research can be found
excellent all the flavors will work out. that explore applications of multiple virtual characters
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ICT4AWE 2018 - 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health
in various domains. We discuss relevant examples be- The Council of Coaches concept leans heavily on
low. existing knowledge and background in the field of
coaching, personalized human-computer interaction,
embodied agents, (multi-party) dialogue and argu-
Early work by André and Rist describes a sys-
mentation theory, and behavior modeling and anal-
tem in which multiple virtual characters are used to
ysis. In the realization of this concept, we build on
present information to a user through “presentation
the myriad of knowledge obtained and learn from the
teams” (André and Rist, 2001) in which a virtual
tools and applications built and described in research.
car salesman and two virtual buyers display a perfor-
However, a thorough discussion of the work in these
mance in which various aspect of the topic (car sales)
areas is beyond the scope of this position paper.
are being discussed in front of a passive viewer (the
user). The prototype described is 16 years old, and
although never further developed beyond the proto-
type, may serve as inspiration in the realization of the 4 SCENARIO: THE STORY OF
Council of Coaches concept. JENNY
Traum and Rickel describe a system in which In order to get a tangible feeling for what the council
the end-user interacts with multiple embodied vir- of coaches is all about, below we outline a detailed
tual agents in a military training scenario (Traum and scenario, that introduces our persona Jenny, a poten-
Rickel, 2002). Although many of the works techno- tial primary user of the system.
logical developments done in 2002 have since been
improved, the work serves as one of the few known Jenny is 64 years old and entering the last few
examples that are comparable to the Council concept. months of her working life as a Sales & Marketing
The authors employed a “Hollywood writer” to guide Manager of a major hotel chain. Due to her life-
the development by creating a storyline and script for long desk job, she is suffering from chronic low back
the training scenario. Inspired by the work of Traum, pain. Jenny has just returned to her desk from a meet-
in the Council of Coaches system we aim to integrate ing with the HR department to discuss her last three
creative stories that unfold between the various vir- months of work before retirement. Although she’s al-
tual coaches throughout the users interaction in order ways been excited about the prospect of having more
to enrich the individual coaches personality and in- time to work in the garden and having more time to
crease engagement with the system overall. spend with her grand daughter, she is beginning to
worry a little about the upcoming major change in her
There is some evidence that the use of multiple life. She didn’t always enjoy her working days but
character agents can be advantageous for learners in she liked biking to the city, the coffee breaks with
virtual teaching systems. In (Baylor and Ebbers, Matthew and Abby and of course the contact with
2003) an e-learning tool was developed in which the the customers. With her final workday rapidly ap-
virtual support agent was divided into two separate proaching, Jenny is starting to worry about missing
agents representing the role of teacher and that of mo- the social contacts, getting out of the house, and get-
tivator respectively. By introducing this split, an in- ting the exercise needed to get her back pain under
crease in performance was obtained, perhaps because control. Looking through the pile of paperwork she
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Council of Coaches - A Novel Holistic Behavior Change Coaching Approach
received from the HR manager, she finds a brochure the scene changes to the council chamber, where the
that catches her eye: “Worried about a major upcom- three coaches that Yao introduced are waiting for
ing life event? Go to www.council-of-coaches.eu!”. Jenny.
Brady: So you are afraid of becoming unfit for
duty?! Start exercising, walking, cy-
Later that evening at home, Jenny visits the website cling! In fact, give me 100 push ups
and reads up on the Council of Coaches application. right now!
The website says the first month of usage is free, so Sonja: Whoa there, Brady, take a deep breath.
she decides to give it a try and creates an account. We’ve not even been introduced! That
She fills in some of her user details and launches the was Sgt Brady and you have to excuse
application. When opening the application, Jenny his enthusiasm, he hasn’t had the oppor-
tunity to coach anyone for a long time.
is greeted by an old and wise looking man who Besides, we don’t even know how ac-
introduces himself as Professor Yao: tive Jenny is.
Yao: Greetings, and welcome to the coun-
cil of coaches it seems that you are in While everyone on the council is looking at Jenny,
need of some counseling, hmm? Well, a short physical activity stage of change questionnaire
you’ve come to the right place ... I am appears on the screen. Jenny indicates that she hasn’t
the head of the council of coaches, and been very active but that she intends to be.
I have a few questions for you, if you Brady: That’s good to know, but I need more
have some time now? information to work with. If you’re
planning to become more physically ac-
This is not what Jenny had expected, and she is tive, I need to know how active you are
looking at the screen a little bit puzzled. now. Do you have an activity tracking
device, Jenny?
Yao: Hmm? Well, do you have some time?
Jenny indicates that she hasn’t got one yet, but that
she may look for one in town on Saturday. The dis-
“All right, I have some time now”, Jenny says, cussion between the council members continues for
and the grey old figure on the screen continues. some time as they are discussing what seems to be
Yao asks a number of questions about what’s trou- the right approach for Jenny. Tracy makes sure the
bling Jenny, and finally stops to think for a little while. other coaches take into account Jenny’s chronic pain.
Yao: Based on what you say I suggest follow-
Jenny listens and intervenes every now and then, until
ing. Do not worry Jenny we have a team she decides that she has to go. She says goodbye to
of experts here to help you. the council, and the council members wish her a nice
I recommend you discuss your worries day and good luck. Curious as to what Sgt Brady will
about your physical activity with Sgt have to say, she decides to bike to the local electronics
Brady, he is a retired army drill instruc- store to buy an activity tracker, and plans to talk to the
tor, but I’m sure you will find him to be council again later that evening.
reasonably pleasant enough.
Next I recommend you talk about your
social worries with Sonja, or “Sociable Three months later... Jenny is now officially re-
Sonja” as she likes to call herself. She tired. In the last three months she has used the Coun-
will have some good advice on how to cil of Coaches application on her laptop. Pete, the
make sure you’re not isolating yourself. retirement coach, has especially given her some use-
And finally, I recommend you talk to ful advice on finding some outdoor hobbies and she
Pete. Pete was recently retired from
joined a weekend walking club in the area. She has
the council of coaches, but he is hav-
ing troubles letting go of his duties. I’m been using her physical activity tracker to keep track
sure he understands well the issues that of her activity and she set a personal step goal for her-
you’re facing concerning your retire- self together with Sgt Brady and Tracy. In her last
ment. meeting she was advised to download the mobile app
Finally, coach Tracy is an expert on for her smartphone so that the coaches could reach
chronic pain, I’m sure you’ll find her to her when she was on the move, and she decided to
be very helpful. install it. Having the app on her smartphone allows
Jenny to contact her personal coaches whenever and
Yao wishes Jenny the best of luck and tells her that wherever she decides. Jenny’s phonebook includes a
she can call on him whenever she needs him. Next, new entry for Sgt Brady, Sonja, Pete, and Tracy, and
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ICT4AWE 2018 - 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health
talking to them is as easy as making a phone call. She stage). Defining these joined strategies as a general
can also text them whenever she is in a more public scheme so that they can be adopted by coaches when
environment. In these last three months, Jenny grew desired could be a possible implementation. For ex-
a fond affection for the coaches. She feels that each ample, a simple scheme to elicit information could
coach cares about her health, and makes her sympa- be: ‘Coach 1: Makes a controversial statement.’ and
thize with them. Even Sgt Brady can have his good ‘Coach 2: Moderates the statement, and asks for in-
days. formation.’.
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Council of Coaches - A Novel Holistic Behavior Change Coaching Approach
how to model a “silent user” and whether “passive characters within a group with different social atti-
participation” is effective in engaging users. A ma- tudes (expressed through posture and gaze). In (Rehm
jor challenge lies in enabling such, essentially agent- and Endrass, 2009), the authors proposed a toolbox
agent, dialogues that are able to convince the non- for manipulating the decision making of agents in a
participating partner. Both from the perspective of group based on different theories on social relations.
coaching and the perspective of argumentation tech- In (Lee and Marsella, 2011), the authors designed
nology, this requires further study. the nonverbal behavior of Embodied Conversational
Agents depending on their conversational role and
their social relations. In (Cafaro et al., 2012), the
Another challenge presents itself in developing
authors conducted a study where users evaluated the
new dialogue types, in particular facilitation. Mo-
perception of an ECA’s attitude (friendly, hostile, ex-
tivation to change should be elicited from the user,
traversion) in the first seconds of an encounter with
rather than being imposed by the coaches — an op-
an ECA exhibiting different behaviors (smiles, gaze
portunity particularly made possible by the Council
and proxemics). As an emerging field, the Council
of Coaches setting. This focus on facilitating deci-
of Coaches concept is expected to build on and con-
sions, as opposed to direct persuasion, differs from
tribute significantly to the area of multi-party embod-
standard persuasion dialogue models, with coaching
ied interaction.
offering a new domain for dialogue theorists. It will
open up new research questions such as how to have a
generally amicable dialogue (e.g. deliberation) which 5.5 Responsible Research and
has as its intention an outcome which is generally as- Innovation
sociated with an adversarial kind (e.g. persuasion).
Finally, the Council of Coaches concept introduces
radically new ways of interaction between digital sys-
Having dynamic strategies, in which the coaches
tems and users. This innovative interaction will be
adjust their conversational strategies to the unfold-
demonstrated in the area of health and wellbeing for
ing dialogue, will also be considered. In highlight-
elderly users — a target group that can be considered
ing the social behavior via multiple virtual agents, the
especially vulnerable. For these reasons it is impera-
project will open the way for both incorporating find-
tive that the research and innovation process follows
ings from, and adding to, social psychology concern-
the principles of Responsible Research and Innova-
ing group dynamics, dominant agents and the role of
tion (RRI). In the realization of this concept, we need
a moderator (and whether there should be one).
to make sure that the new tools and coaching meth-
ods, as well as the actual R&I processes contribute
5.4 Human-Computer Interaction effectively to the needs of future users and society at
large, are aligned with societal values and ethical con-
Anthropomorphic virtual agents are designed as sim- siderations, and have a realistic chance of succeeding
ulated social role models in various domains and ap- in the competitive market of e-Health and e-coaching
plications, among which the role of a life style coach tools.
or therapist in the health domain. Several studies have
shown that the visual presence and appearance of such
agents have a major impact on motivation and affect
(Baylor et al., 2009). In order to be effective in per-
6 CONCLUSIONS
suading the user, a coach should use affective as well
Despite the proliferation of ICT solutions for person-
as rational arguments and adapt its persuasive strategy
alized health-care, there is still no easy way to pro-
to the goals and value preferences of the user. As mul-
vide older adults with integrated coaching services.
tiple coaches introduce additional challenges in terms
Council of Coaches introduces a radically new vir-
of the Coaching Strategies (Section 5.1) and the dia-
tual coaching concept based on multiple autonomous,
logue (Section 5.3), so too new challenges arise in the
embodied virtual coaches, which form together a per-
visual representation of a group of embodied agents.
sonal council that fulfills the needs of older adults in
an integrated way. Each coach has his own expertise,
Different models enabling Embodied Conversa- personality and style of coaching; they might not al-
tional Agents (ECAs) to exhibit social attitudes ways agree with each other, but they all share a single
through their verbal and non-verbal behavior have goal: to support the user across every aspect of well-
been proposed. For instance, in (Gillies et al., 2004), being, including physical, social, cognitive and men-
the system Demeanor supported the design of virtual tal support. The Council members listen to the user,
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ICT4AWE 2018 - 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health
inform the user, help the user to set personal goals Cafaro, A., Vilhjálmsson, H. H., Bickmore, T., Heylen, D.,
and inspire him to take control of his health. Give the Jóhannsdóttir, K. R., and Valgarosson, G. S. (2012).
council your thoughts, or listen and observe how the First impressions: Users’ judgments of virtual agents’
personality and interpersonal attitude in first encoun-
individual coaches exchange their views on numerous ters. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including
issues. Apply your new skills in daily life and if the subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and
need arises, contact any of the coaches anytime, any- Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics).
where. . . de Carolis, B. and Mazzotta, I. (2017). A user-adaptive per-
suasive system based on a-rational theory. Interna-
tional Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 108(Sup-
The fields of behavior change, health information plement C):70 – 88.
provision, e-learning, and human-computer interac- Gillies, M., Crabtree, I. B., and Ballin, D. (2004). Cus-
tion in general will greatly benefit from the Council tomisation and context for expressive behaviour in the
of Coaches approach. By developing a framework in broadband world. BT Technology Journal.
which multiple, completely autonomous agents can Klaassen, R., op den Akker, R., Di Bitonto, P., van der Burg,
hold interactive dialogues with a user, we open up G.-J., Bul, K., and Kato, P. (2016). Pergamon: A se-
the possibility for numerous new and exciting innova- rious gaming and digital coaching platform support-
ing patients and healthcare professionals. In Varajao,
tions in those research fields. We presented the overall J., Cruz-Cunha, M., Martinho, R., Rijo, R., Bjorn-
concept and the major technological and social chal- Andersen, N., Turner, R., and Alves, D., editors, In-
lenges in realizing the Council of Coaches and will tern. Conf. ENTERprise Information Systems/Intern.
take the necessary steps to overcome these challenges Conf. Project MANagement/Intern. Conf. Health and
in the next three years. Social Care Inform.Systems and Techn., 2016; CEN-
TERIS/ProjMAN/HCist, pages 261–269. SciKA.
Lee, J. and Marsella, S. (2011). Modeling side participants
and bystanders: The importance of being a laugh
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS track. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (includ-
ing subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence
and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics).
The European Commission has provided funding for
Lisetti, C., Amini, R., Yasavur, U., and Rishe, N. (2013). I
realizing the Council of Coaches concept in the same- can help you change! an empathic virtual agent deliv-
titled project under Grant Agreement No. 769553. ers behavior change health interventions. ACM Trans.
Manage. Inf. Syst., 4(4):19:1–19:28.
op den Akker, H., Cabrita, M., op den Akker, R., Jones,
V. M., and Hermens, H. J. (2015). Tailored moti-
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