Use of technology often has unpleasant side effects, which may include strong, negative emotional states that arise during interaction with computers. Frustration, confusion, anger, anxiety and similar emotional states can affect not only the interaction itself, but also productivity, learning, social relationships, and overall well-being. This paper suggests a new solution to this problem: designing human–computer interaction systems to actively support users in their ability to manage and recover from negative emotional states. An interactive affect–support agent was designed and built to test the proposed solution in a situation where users were feeling frustration. The agent, which used only text and buttons in a graphical user interface for its interaction, demonstrated components of active listening, empathy, and sympathy in an effort to support users in their ability to recover from frustration. The agent's effectiveness was evaluated against two control conditions, which were also text-based interactions: (1) users’ emotions were ignored, and (2) users were able to report problems and ‘vent’ their feelings and concerns to the computer. Behavioral results showed that users chose to continue to interact with the system that had caused their frustration significantly longer after interacting with the affect–support agent, in comparison with the two controls. These results support the prediction that the computer can undo some of the negative feelings it causes by helping a user manage his or her emotional state.

Article Free Access Share on The effects of distance in local versus remote human-computer interaction Author: Youngme Moon Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room 14E-303, Cambridge, MA Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room 14E-303, Cambridge, MAView Profile Authors Info & Claims CHI '98: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsJanuary 1998 Pages 103–108https://doi.org/10.1145/274644.274660Published:01 January 1998Publication History 16citation938DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations16Total Downloads938Last 12 Months34Last 6 weeks3 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

This study investigated the claim that humans will readily form team relationships with computers. Drawing from the group dynamic literature in human-human interactions, a laboratory experiment ( n =56) manipulated identity and interdependence to create team affiliation in a human-computer interaction. The data show that subjects who are told they are interdependent with the computer affiliate with the computer as a team. The data also show that the effects of being in a team with a computer are the same as the effects of being in a team with another human: subjects in the interdependence conditions perceived the computer to be more similar to themselves, saw themselves as more cooperative, were more open to influence from the computer, thought the information from the computer was of higher quality, found the information from the computer friendlier, and conformed more to the computer's information. Subjects in the identity conditions showed neither team affiliation nor the effects of team affiliation.