The Need for Assistants that Monitor Cognitive Abilities

Interaction Challenges for Intelligent Assistants

Volume

Papers from the 2007 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

A common viewpoint for personal assistants centers around the question of which tasks the assistant can perform for (or in partnership with) the user. This short paper argues that we need to expand this viewpoint to include personal assistants that monitor and report back on the user's performance. In support of this argument, we enumerate specific uses and benefits of monitoring the cognitive abilities of computer users through human-computer-interaction and map these benefits to specific occupations and populations. We focus on one particular population: older adults experiencing or concerned about cognitive decline. We outline a high-level proposal for monitoring the cognitive abilities of older adults using an analysis of data extracted from speech, language, and the user's performance on computer applications.