2013

Reaching Women Through Health Information Technology: The Gabby Preconception Care System

American Journal of Health Promotion, Vol. 27, No. sp3 (January/February 2013) pp. eS11-eS20
Gardiner, P., Hempstead, M., Ring, L., Bickmore, T., Yinusa-Nyahkoon, L., Tran, H., Paasche-Orlow, M., Damus, K., Jack, B. (2013)

Employing 'Virtual Advisors' in Preventive Care for Underserved Communities: Results from the COMPASS Study

Journal of Health Communication
King, A., Bickmore, T., Campero, M., Pruitt, L., Yin, L. (to appear)

Tinker - A Relational Agent Museum Guide

Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., Vardoulakis, L. (to appear)

Use of an Interactive Computer Agent to Support Breastfeeding

Maternal and Child Health Journal
Edwards, R., Bickmore, T., Jenkins, L., Foley, M. (to appear)

First impressions in user-agent encounters: the impact of an agent's nonverbal behavior on users' relational decisions

Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS2013)
Cafaro, A., Vilhjalmsson, H., Bickmore, T., Heylen, D., Schulman, D. (to appear)

Feasibility of a Virtual Exercise Coach to Promote Walking in Community-Dwelling Persons with Parkinson Disease

American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Ellis, T., Latham, N., DeAngelis, T., Thomas, C., Saint-Hilaire, M. and Bickmore, T. (to appear)

Using Relational Agents in Tailored Interventions for Multiple Risk Factors: Preliminary 12 Month Results

Society of Behavioral Medicine 2013 Annual Meeting (abstract)
Velicer, W., Reading, C., Blissmer, B., Meier, K., Babbin, S., Paiva, A., Bickmore, T., Johnson, J. (to appear)

Increasing Engagement in Web-based Interventions using Relational Agents

Society of Behavioral Medicine 2013 Annual Meeting (abstract)
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., Yin, L. (to appear)

Reaching Minority Populations with Relational Agents

Society of Behavioral Medicine 2013 Annual Meeting (abstract)
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., Yin, L., Ring, L. (to appear)

Conversational Interfaces in HCI and Behavioral Medicine

Society of Behavioral Medicine 2013 Annual Meeting (abstract)
Bickmore, T. (to appear)

A Pilot Study of a Computer-Based Relational Agent to Screen for Substance-Use Problems in Primary Care

Society of Behavioral Medicine 2013 Annual Meeting (abstract)
McNair, S., Checchi, K., Rubin, A., Marcello, T., Bickmore, T., and Simon, S. (to appear)

Indexing Stories for Conversational Health Interventions

AAAI Spring Symposium on Data Driven Wellness: From Self-Tracking to Behavior Change
Manuvinakurike, R., Barry, B., and Bickmore, T. (to appear)

Agent-mediated Patient-Clinician Communication

CHI 2013 Workshop on Patient–Clinician Communication: The Roadmap for Human–Computer Interaction
Bickmore, T.

Inadequate Health Literacy as a Vulnerability

CHI 2013 Workshop on Designing For- and With- Vulnerable People
Utami, D., and Bickmore, T.

Embodied Agents for Long-Term Discourse

Phd Dissertation, College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University
Schulman, D.

Social Desirability Bias and Engagement in Systems Designed for Long-Term Health Tracking

Phd Dissertation, College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University
Vardoulakis, L.

Automated Indexing of Stories for Conversational Health Intervention

MS Thesis, College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University
Manuvinakurike, R.

Limited Health Literacy and Decline in Executive Function in Older Adults

J. Health Communication
Sequeira, S., Eggermont, L., Silliman, R., Bickmore, T., Henault, L., Winter, M., Cheng, D., Nelson, K., Paasche-Orlow, M.

Automated Interventions for Multiple Health Behaviors Using Conversational Agents

Patient Education and Counseling
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., Sidner, C. (to appear)

2012

An Internet-Based Virtual Coach to Promote Physical Activity Adherence in Overweight Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial

Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14(1)
Watson, A., Bickmore, T., Cange, A., Kulshreshtha, A., and Kvedar, J. (2012)

Feasibility of a Virtual Exercise Coach to Promote Walking in Community-Dwelling Persons with Parkinson's Disease

International Congress on Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders (abstract)
Ellis, T., Latham, N., DeAngelis, T., Hendron, K., Thomas, C., Saint-Hilaire, M., Bickmore, T. (2012)

Using Computer Agents to Improve Emotional Wellbeing of Hospital Patients

CHI workshop on Interaction Design and Emotional Wellbeing
Aziz, M., Bickmore, T., Vardoulakis, L., Shanahan, C., Paasche-Orlow, M. (2012)

Using an Interactive Visual Novel to Promote Patient Empowerment through Engagement

Foundations of Digital Games
Yin, L., Ring, L, Bickmore, T. (2012)

Efficacy of a Computer-based Intervention to Promote Walking in Older Adults

Annual Meeting of the American Geriatrics Society (abstract)
Paasche-Orlow, M., Silliman, R., Winter, M., Cheng, D., Henault, L., Bickmore, T. (2012)

Incorporating motivational interviewing into virtual contraceptive counseling

American Public Health Association Annual Meeting (abstract)
Imperato, C., Damus, K., Hempstead, M., Schulman, D., Kopy, M., Tran, H., Yinusa-Nyahkoon, L., Paasche-Orlow, M., Bickmore, T., Jack, B. (2012)

Pilot study of the use of a computer agent to provide information and support to breastfeeding mothers

American Public Health Association Annual Meeting (abstract)
Edwards, R., Bickmore, T., Jenkins, L., Foley, M. (2012)

Empirical Validation of an Accommodation Theory-based Model of User-Agent Relationship

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA)
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D. (2012)

Hospital Buddy: A Persistent Emotional Support Companion Agent for Hospital Patients

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA)
Bickmore, T., Bukhari, L., Vardoulakis, L., Paasche-Orlow, M., and Shanahan, C. (2012)

Designing Relational Agents as Long Term Social Companions for Older Adults

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA)
Vardoulakis, L., Ring, L., Barry, B., Sidner, C., and Bickmore, T. (2012)

Longitudinal Affective Computing: Virtual Agents that Respond to User Mood

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA)
Ring, L., Bickmore, T., and Schulman, D. (2012)

Fully Automated Generation of Question-Answer Pairs for Scripted Virtual Instruction

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA)
Kuyten, P., Bickmore, T., Stoyanchev, S., Piwek, P., Prendinger, H. and Ishizuka, M. (2012)

First Impressions: users' judgments of Virtual Agents' Personality and Interpersonal Attitude in First Encounters

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA)
Cafaro, A., Vilhjálmsson, H., Bickmore, T., Heylen, D., Jóhannsdóttir, K., and Valgarðsson, G. (2012)

The Role of Information Technology in Health Literacy Research

Journal of Health Communication, v. 17, Supplement 3, pp 23-29
Bickmore, T., and Paasche-Orlow, M. (2012)

Changes in Verbal and Nonverbal Conversational Behavior in Long-Term Interaction

International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI)
Schulman, D. and Bickmore, T. (2012)

Developing Virtual Patient Advocate Technology for Shared Decision Making

34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM, abstract)
Mitchell, S., Imperato, C., Schulman, D., Hempstead, M., Tran, H., Kopy, M., Bickmore, T., Paasche-Orlow, M., and Jack, B. (2012)

Health Literacy and Usability of Clinical Trial Search Engines

Health Literacy Annual Research Conference (HARC, abstract)
Bickmore, T., Paasche-Orlow, M., Aziz, M., and Barry, B. (2012)

2011

A Reusable Framework for Health Counseling Dialogue Systems based on a Behavioral Medicine Ontology

Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 44, 183-197
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., and Sidner, C. (2011)

Adapting Research-tested Computerized Tailored Interventions for Broader Dissemination and Implementation

Translational Behavioral Medicine, 1(1), 93-102
Vinson, C., Bickmore, T., Farrell, D., Campbell, M., An, L., Saunders, E., Nowak, M., Fowler, B., and Shaikh, A. (2011)

Longitudinal Remote Follow-Up by Intelligent Conversational Agents for Post-Hospitalization Care

AAAI Spring Symposium on AI and Health Communication
Pfeifer, L. and Bickmore, T. (2011)

An Intelligent Conversational Agent for Promoting Long-term Health Behavior Change using Motivational Interviewing

AAAI Spring Symposium on AI and Health Communication
Schulman, D., Bickmore, T., and Sidner, C. (2011)

Is the Media Equation a Flash in the Pan? The Durability and Longevity of Social Responses to Computers

ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)
Pfeifer, L. and Bickmore, T. (2011)

Employing 'Virtual Advisors' to Promote Physical Activity in Underserved Communities: Results from the COMPASS Study

Society for Behavioral Medicine (SBM) annual meeting (abstract)
King, A., Bickmore, T. Campero, I. Pruitt, L., Yin, L. (2011)

Relational Agents for Promoting Engagement with Underserved Populations

Society for Behavioral Medicine (SBM) annual meeting (abstract)
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., Pfeifer, L., Yin, L. (2011)

An On-line Preconception Care Educational Program for Young African American Women

139th American Public Health Association Annual Meeting (abstract)
Yinusa-Nyahkoon L, Cuoco M, Ring L, Bickmore T, Paasche-Orlow M, Damus K, Jack B (2011)

Posture, Relationship, and Discourse Structure

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA), Reykjavik, Iceland
Schulman, D., Bickmore, T., (2011)

Relational Agents Improve Engagement and Learning in Science Museum Visitors

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA), Reykjavik, Iceland
Bickmore, T., Pfeifer, L., Schulman, D. (2011)

Relational Agents as an Adjunct in Treating Schizophrenia: Case Studies

Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services 49(8):22-29
Puskar, K, Schlenk, E, Callan, J, Bickmore, T, Sereika, S (2011)

Health Literacy and Therapeutic Alliance with Relational Computer Agents

Health Literacy Annual Research Conference (abstract)
Bickmore, T., Paasche-Orlow, M. (2011)



2010

Empathic Touch by Relational Agents

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 1(1), 60-71
Bickmore, T, Fernando, R, Ring, L, Schulman, D (2010)

Maintaining Engagement in Long-term Interventions with Relational Agents

International Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence special issue on Intelligent Virtual Agents 24(6): 648-666
Bickmore, T, Schulman, D, Yin, L (2010)

Relational Agents in Clinical Psychiatry

Harvard Review of Psychiatry, special issue on Psychiatry and Cyberspace 18(2): 119-130
Bickmore, T, Gruber, A (2010)

Response to a Relational Agent by Hospital Patients with Depressive Symptoms

Interacting with Computers special issue on Mental Health 22(4), 289-298
Bickmore, T, Mitchell, S, Jack, B, Paasche-Orlow, M, Pfeifer, L, ODonnell, J (2010)

Maintaining Reality: Relational Agents for Antipsychotic Medication Adherence

Interacting with Computers special issue on Mental Health 22(4) 276-288
Bickmore, T, Puskar, K, Schlenk, E, Pfeifer, L, Sereika, S (2010)

Increasing Access to Preconception Care Using Health Information Technology

Salud(i)Ciencia
Mitchell, S, Bickmore, T, Paasche-Orlow, M, Williams, C, Forsythe, S, Atrash, H, Johnson, K, Jack, B (2010)

Cultural and Linguistic Adaptation of Relational Agents for Health Counseling

Workshop on Interactive Systems in Healthcare, Atlanta, GA
Yin, L., Bickmore, T., Byron, D., and Cortes, D. (2010)

Usability of Conversational Agents by Patients with Inadequate Health Literacy: Evidence from Two Clinical Trials

Journal of Health Communication 15, 197-210
Bickmore, T, Pfeifer, L, Byron, D, Forsythe, S, Henault, L, Jack, B, Silliman, R, Paasche-Orlow, M (2010)

The Impact of Linguistic and Cultural Congruity on Persuasion by Conversational Agents

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA), Philadelphia, PA
Yin, L, Bickmore, T, Cortes, D (2010)

Modeling Behavioral Manifestations of Coordination and Rapport over Multiple Conversations: Speaking Rate as a Relational Indicator for a Virtual Agent

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA), Philadelphia, PA
Schulman, D, Bickmore, T (2010)

Designing Embodied Conversational Agents to Conduct Longitudinal Health Interviews

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA), Philadelphia, PA
Pfeifer, L, Bickmore, T (2010)

Making It Personal: End-User Authoring of Health Narratives Delivered by Virtual Agents

Intelligent Virtual Agents conference (IVA), Philadelphia, PA
Bickmore, T, Ring, L (2010)

Use of a Computer Agent to Explain Anesthesia Concepts to Patients

Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists
Ehrenfeld, J, Sandberg, W, Warren, L, Kwo, J, Bickmore, T (2010)



2009

Automated Explanation of Research Informed Consent by Embodied Conversational Agents

MS Thesis, College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University
Fernando, R. (2009)

Engagement vs. Deceit: Virtual Humans with Human Autobiographies

Proceedings of Intelligent Virtual Agents, Amsterdam. Best Paper Award
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., and Yin, L. (2009)

DTask & LiteBody: Open Source, Standards-based Tools for Building Web-deployed Embodied Conversational Agents

Proceedings of Intelligent Virtual Agents, Amsterdam.
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D. and Shaw, G. (2009)

Should Agents Speak Like, um, Humans? The Use of Conversational Fillers by Virtual Agents

Proceedings of Intelligent Virtual Agents, Amsterdam.
Pfeifer, L. and Bickmore, T. (2009)

Persuading Users through Counseling Dialogue with a Conversational Agent

Proceedings of Persuasive Technology 2009, Claremont, CA.
Schulman, D. and Bickmore, T. (2009)

Towards Empathic Touch by Relational Agents

Proceedings of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS). Workshop on Empathic Agents, Budapest, Hungary.
Bickmore, T. and Fernando, R. (2009)

A Virtual Laboratory for Studying Long-term Relationships between Humans and Virtual Agents

Proceedings of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), Budapest, Hungary.
Bickmore, T. and Schulman, D. (2009)

Taking the Time to Care: Empowering Low Health Literacy Hospital Patients with Virtual Nurse Agents

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Boston, MA.
Bickmore, T., Pfeifer, L., and Jack, B. (2009)

Using Computer Agents to Explain Medical Documents to Patients with Low Health Literacy

Patient Education and Counseling, 75(3), 315-320.
Bickmore, T., Pfeifer, L., and Paasche-Orlow, M. (2009)

Issues in Designing Agents for Long Term Behavior Change

CHI'09 Workshop on Engagement by Design.
Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., Sidner, C. (2009)

Context Awareness in a Handheld Exercise Agent

Pervasive and Mobile Computing special issue on Pervasive Health and Wellness, Vol 5, 226-235
Bickmore, T., Mauer, D., and Brown, T. (2009)

2008

The Role of Gesture in Document Explanation by Embodied Conversational Agents

International Journal of Semantic Computing, Vol. 2, No. 1, 47–70
Bickmore, T., Pfeifer, L., and Yin, L. (2008)

Public Displays of Affect: Deploying Relational Agents in Public Spaces

CHI'08 Extended Abstracts.
Bickmore, T. Pfeifer, L., Schulman, D., Perera, S., Senanayake, C. and Nazmi, I. (2008)

Relational Agents for Antipsychotic Medication Adherence

CHI'08 workshop on Technology in Mental Health.
Bickmore, T. and Pfeifer, L. (2008)

The Identification of Users by Relational Agents

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) '08.
Schulman, D., Sharma, M., and Bickmore, T. (2008)

Negotiating Task Interruptions with Virtual Agents for Health Behavior Change

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) '08.
Bickmore, T., Mauer, D., Crespo, F., Brown, T. (2008)

2007

Health Document Explanation by Virtual Agents

Intelligent Virtual Agents '07, Paris.
Bickmore, T., Pfeifer, L., and Paasche-Orlow, M. (2007)

Context Awareness in Mobile Relational Agents

Intelligent Virtual Agents '07, Paris.
Bickmore, T., Mauer, D., and Brown, T. (2007)

Persuasion, Task Interruption and Health Regimen Adherence

Persuasive Technology '07, Stanford, CA.
Bickmore, T., Mauer, D., Crespo, F., and Brown, T. (2007)

What Would Jiminy Cricket Do? Lessons From the First Social Wearable.

HCI International '07, Beijing, China.
Bickmore, T. (2007)

Practical Approaches to Comforting Users with Relational Agents

ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), San Jose, CA.
Bickmore, T. and Schulman, D. (2007)

2006

Towards Plan-based Health Behavior Change Counseling Systems.

AAAI Spring Symposium on Argumentation for Consumers of Healthcare, Stanford, CA.
Bickmore, T. and Sidner, C. L. (2006)

Modalities for Building Relationships with Handheld Computer Agents.

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Montreal, Canada.
Bickmore, T. and Mauer, D. (2006)

The Comforting Presence of Relational Agents.

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Montreal, Canada.
Bickmore, T. and Schulman, D. (2006)

Wearable Relational Agents for Health.

Ann Behav Med 31 (Suppl) : S185
Bickmore, T. (2006)

2005

'It's just like you talk to a friend' Relational Agents for Older Adults.

Interacting with Computers 17 (6) : 711-735
Bickmore, T., Caruso, L., Clough-Gorr, K., and Heeren, T. (2005)

Establishing the Computer-Patient Working Alliance in Automated Health Behavior Change Interventions.

Patient Education and Couseling 59 (1) : 21-30
Bickmore, T., Gruber, A. and Picard, R. (2005)

Establishing and Maintaining Long-Term Human-Computer Relationships.

ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction (ToCHI) 12 (2) : 293-327
Bickmore, T. and Picard, R. (2005)

Acceptance and Usability of a Relational Agent Interface by Urban Older Adults.

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) Portland, OR.
Bickmore, T., Caruso, L., and Clough-Gorr, K. (2005)

2004

Towards Caring Machines.

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) Vienna.
Bickmore, T. and Picard, R. (2004)

2001

Relational Agents: A Model and Implementation of Building User Trust.

Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), pp. 396-403. March 31 - April 5. Seattle, Washington.
Bickmore, T. and Cassell, J. (2001)

RELATIONAL AGENTS GROUP
Relational Agents are computer agents designed to form long-term, social-emotional relationships with their users. We are investigating the use of these agents in task domains in which human-agent relationships actually improve task outcomes, such as in coaching, counseling, psychotherapy and healthcare.