cs.HC

arXiv:2501.10568v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We explore a method for presenting word suggestions for non-visual text input using simultaneous voices. We conduct two perceptual studies and investigate the impact of different presentations of voices on a user's ability to detect which voice, if any, spoke their desired word. Our sets of words simulated the word suggestions of a predictive keyboard during real-world text input. We find that when voices are simultaneous, user accuracy decreases significantly with each added word suggestion. However, adding a slight 0.15 s delay between the start of each subsequent word allows two simultaneous words to be presented with no significant decrease in accuracy compared to presenting two words sequentially (84% simultaneous versus 86% sequential). This allows two word suggestions to be presented to the user 32% faster than sequential playback without decreasing accuracy.

arXiv:2501.10803v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Online fraud substantially harms individuals and seniors are disproportionately targeted. While family is crucial for seniors, little research has empirically examined how they protect seniors against fraud. To address this gap, we employed an inductive thematic analysis of 124 posts and 16,872 comments on RedNote (Xiaohongshu), exploring the family support ecosystem for senior-targeted online fraud in China. We develop a taxonomy of senior-targeted online fraud from a familial perspective, revealing younger members often spot frauds hard for seniors to detect, such as unusual charges. Younger family members fulfill multiple safeguarding roles, including preventative measures, fraud identification, fraud persuasion, loss recovery, and education. They also encounter numerous challenges, such as seniors' refusal of help and considerable mental and financial stress. Drawing on these, we develop a conceptual framework to characterize family support in senior-targeted fraud, and outline implications for researchers and practitioners to consider the broader stakeholder ecosystem and cultural aspects.

arXiv:2501.02456v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The ACM CHI Conference has a tradition of citing its intellectual heritage. At the same time, we know CHI is highly diverse and evolving. In this highly dynamic context, it is not clear how the CHI community continues to appreciate its milestones (within and outside of CHI). We present an investigation into how the community's citations to milestones have evolved over 43 years of CHI Proceedings (1981-2024). Forgetting curves plotted for each year suggest that milestones are slowly fading from the CHI community's collective memory. However, the picture is more nuanced when we trace citations to the top-cited milestones over time. We identify three distinct types of milestones cited at CHI, a typology of milestone contributions, and define the Milestone Coefficient as a metric to assess the impact of milestone papers on a continuous scale. Further, we provide empirical evidence of a Matthew effect at CHI. We discuss the broader ramifications for the CHI community and the field of HCI.

arXiv:2501.10553v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Video conferencing meetings are more effective when they are inclusive, but inclusion often hinges on meeting leaders' and/or co-facilitators' practices. AI systems can be designed to improve meeting inclusion at scale by moderating negative meeting behaviors and supporting meeting leaders. We explored this design space by conducting $9$ user-centered ideation sessions, instantiating design insights in a prototype ``virtual co-host'' system, and testing the system in a formative exploratory lab study ($n=68$ across $12$ groups, $18$ interviews). We found that ideation session participants wanted AI agents to ask questions before intervening, which we formalized as the ``Observe, Ask, Intervene'' (OAI) framework. Participants who used our prototype preferred OAI over fully autonomous intervention, but rationalized away the virtual co-host's critical feedback. From these findings, we derive guidelines for designing AI agents to influence behavior and mediate group work. We also contribute methodological and design guidelines specific to mitigating inequitable meeting participation.

arXiv:2501.10696v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Spatial navigation is a complex cognitive function involving sensory inputs, such as visual, auditory, and proprioceptive information, to understand and move within space. This ability allows humans to create mental maps, navigate through environments, and process directional cues, crucial for exploring new places and finding one's way in unfamiliar surroundings. This study takes an algorithmic approach to extract indices relevant to human spatial navigation using eye movement data. Leveraging electrooculography signals, we analyzed statistical features and applied feature engineering techniques to study eye movements during navigation tasks. The proposed work combines signal processing and machine learning approaches to develop indices for navigation and orientation, spatial anxiety, landmark recognition, path survey, and path route. The analysis yielded five subscore indices with notable accuracy. Among these, the navigation and orientation subscore achieved an R2 score of 0.72, while the landmark recognition subscore attained an R2 score of 0.50. Additionally, statistical features highly correlated with eye movement metrics, including blinks, saccades, and fixations, were identified. The findings of this study can lead to more cognitive assessments and enable early detection of spatial navigation impairments, particularly among individuals at risk of cognitive decline.

arXiv:2501.10792v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The absence of a human operator in automated vehicles (AVs) may require external Human-Machine Interfaces (eHMIs) to facilitate communication with other road users in uncertain scenarios, for example, regarding the right of way. Given the plethora of adjustable parameters, balancing visual and auditory elements is crucial for effective communication with other road users. With N=37 participants, this study employed multi-objective Bayesian optimization to enhance eHMI designs and improve trust, safety perception, and mental demand. By reporting the Pareto front, we identify optimal design trade-offs. This research contributes to the ongoing standardization efforts of eHMIs, supporting broader adoption.

arXiv:2501.10383v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The Generative AI Ethics Playbook provides guidance for identifying and mitigating risks of machine learning systems across various domains, including natural language processing, computer vision, and generative AI. This playbook aims to assist practitioners in diagnosing potential harms that may arise during the design, development, and deployment of datasets and models. It offers concrete strategies and resources for mitigating these risks, to help minimize negative impacts on users and society. Drawing on current best practices in both research and ethical considerations, this playbook aims to serve as a comprehensive resource for AI/ML practitioners. The intended audience of this playbook includes machine learning researchers, engineers, and practitioners who are involved in the creation and implementation of generative and multimodal models (e.g., text-to-text, image-to-image, text-to-image, text-to-video). Specifically, we provide transparency/documentation checklists, topics of interest, common questions, examples of harms through case studies, and resources and strategies to mitigate harms throughout the Generative AI lifecycle. This playbook was made collaboratively over the course of 16 months through extensive literature review of over 100 resources and peer-reviewed articles, as well as through an initial group brainstorming session with 18 interdisciplinary AI ethics experts from industry and academia, and with additional feedback from 8 experts (5 of whom were in the initial brainstorming session). We note that while this playbook provides examples, discussion, and harm mitigation strategies, research in this area is ongoing. Our playbook aims to be a practically useful survey, taking a high-level view rather than aiming for covering the entire existing body of research.

arXiv:2501.10384v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This research applies Harold Demsetz's concept of the nirvana approach to the realm of AI governance and debunks three common fallacies in various AI policy proposals--"the grass is always greener on the other side," "free lunch," and "the people could be different." Through this, I expose fundamental flaws in the current AI regulatory proposal. First, some commentators intuitively believe that people are more reliable than machines and that government works better in risk control than companies' self-regulation, but they do not fully compare the differences between the status quo and the proposed replacements. Second, when proposing some regulatory tools, some policymakers and researchers do not realize and even gloss over the fact that harms and costs are also inherent in their proposals. Third, some policy proposals are initiated based on a false comparison between the AI-driven world, where AI does lead to some risks, and an entirely idealized world, where no risk exists at all. However, the appropriate approach is to compare the world where AI causes risks to the real world where risks are everywhere, but people can live well with these risks. The prevalence of these fallacies in AI governance underscores a broader issue: the tendency to idealize potential solutions without fully considering their real-world implications. This idealization can lead to regulatory proposals that are not only impractical but potentially harmful to innovation and societal progress.

arXiv:2501.10517v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Search engines, as cognitive partners, reshape how individuals evaluate their cognitive abilities. This study examines how search tool access influences cognitive self-esteem (CSE)-users' self-perception of cognitive abilities -- through the lens of transactive memory systems. Using a within-subject design with 164 participants, we found that CSE significantly inflates when users have access to search tools, driven by cognitive offloading. Participants with lower initial CSE exhibited greater shifts, highlighting individual differences. Search self-efficacy mediated the relationship between prior search experience and CSE, emphasizing the role of users' past interactions. These findings reveal opportunities for search engine design: interfaces that promote awareness of cognitive offloading and foster self-reflection can support accurate metacognitive evaluations, reducing overreliance on external tools. This research contributes to HCI by demonstrating how interactive systems shape cognitive self-perception, offering actionable insights for designing human-centered tools that balance user confidence and cognitive independence.

arXiv:2501.10551v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As large language models (LLMs) advance and become widespread, students increasingly turn to systems like ChatGPT for assistance with writing tasks. Educators are concerned with students' usage of ChatGPT beyond cheating; using ChatGPT may reduce their critical engagement with writing, hindering students' learning processes. The negative or positive impact of using LLM-powered tools for writing will depend on how students use them; however, how students use ChatGPT remains largely unknown, resulting in a limited understanding of its impact on learning. To better understand how students use these tools, we conducted an online study $(n=70)$ where students were given an essay-writing task using a custom platform we developed to capture the queries they made to ChatGPT. To characterize their ChatGPT usage, we categorized each of the queries students made to ChatGPT. We then analyzed the relationship between ChatGPT usage and a variety of other metrics, including students' self-perception, attitudes towards AI, and the resulting essay itself. We found that factors such as gender, race, and perceived self-efficacy can help predict different AI usage patterns. Additionally, we found that different usage patterns were associated with varying levels of enjoyment and perceived ownership over the essay. The results of this study contribute to discussions about how writing education should incorporate generative AI-powered tools in the classroom.

arXiv:2410.20564v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Conversational systems rely heavily on speech recognition to interpret and respond to user commands and queries. Despite progress on speech recognition accuracy, errors may still sometimes occur and can significantly affect the end-user utility of such systems. While visual feedback can help detect errors, it may not always be practical, especially for people who are blind or low-vision. In this study, we investigate ways to improve error detection by manipulating the audio output of the transcribed text based on the recognizer's confidence level in its result. Our findings show that selectively slowing down the audio when the recognizer exhibited uncertainty led to a 12% relative increase in participants' ability to detect errors compared to uniformly slowing the audio. It also reduced the time it took participants to listen to the recognition result and decide if there was an error by 11%.

arXiv:2501.10582v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Users of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) may write letter-by-letter via an interface that uses a character language model. However, most state-of-the-art large pretrained language models predict subword tokens of variable length. We investigate how to practically use such models to make accurate and efficient character predictions. We fine-tune models using a large dataset of sentences we curated in which each sentence is rated according to how useful it might be for spoken or written AAC communication. We find that using an algorithm to produce character predictions from a subword large language model provides more accurate predictions than adding a classification layer or using a byte-level model. We also find that our domain adaptation curriculum is effective at improving model performance on simple, conversational text.

arXiv:2501.10713v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Socially interactive agents are gaining prominence in domains like healthcare, education, and service contexts, particularly virtual agents due to their inherent scalability. To facilitate authentic interactions, these systems require verbal and nonverbal communication through e.g., facial expressions and gestures. While natural language processing technologies have rapidly advanced, incorporating human-like nonverbal behavior into real-world interaction contexts is crucial for enhancing the success of communication, yet this area remains underexplored. One barrier is creating autonomous systems with sophisticated conversational abilities that integrate human-like nonverbal behavior. This paper presents a distributed architecture using Epic Games MetaHuman, combined with advanced conversational AI and camera-based user management, that supports methods like motion capture, handcrafted animation, and generative approaches for nonverbal behavior. We share insights into a system architecture designed to investigate nonverbal behavior in socially interactive agents, deployed in a three-week field study in the Deutsches Museum Bonn, showcasing its potential in realistic nonverbal behavior research.

arXiv:2501.10738v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Litrepl is a lightweight text processing tool designed to recognize and evaluate code sections within Markdown or Latex documents. This functionality is useful for both batch document section evaluation and interactive coding within a text editor, provided a straightforward integration is established. Inspired by Project Jupyter, Litrepl aims to facilitate the creation of research documents. In the light of recent developments in software deployment, however, we have shifted our focus from informal reproducibility to enhancing transparency in communication with programming language interpreters, by either eliminating or clearly exposing mutable states within the communication process.

arXiv:2411.15948v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Adaptive data analysis (ADA) involves a dynamic interaction between an analyst and a dataset owner, where the analyst submits queries sequentially, adapting them based on previous answers. This process can become adversarial, as the analyst may attempt to overfit by targeting non-generalizable patterns in the data. To counteract this, the dataset owner introduces randomization techniques, such as adding noise to the responses. This noise not only helps prevent overfitting, but also enhances data privacy. However, it must be carefully calibrated to ensure that the statistical reliability of the responses is not compromised. In this paper, we extend the ADA problem to the context of distributed datasets. Specifically, we consider a scenario where a potentially adversarial analyst interacts with multiple distributed responders through adaptive queries. We assume the responses are subject to noise, introduced by the channel connecting the responders and the analyst. We demonstrate how this noise can be opportunistically leveraged through a federated mechanism to enhance the generalizability of ADA, thereby increasing the number of query-response interactions between the analyst and the responders. We illustrate that the careful tuning of the transmission amplitude based on the theoretically achievable bounds can significantly impact the number of accurately answerable queries.

arXiv:2501.10369v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This article evaluates how creative uses of machine learning can address three adjacent terms: ambiguity, uncertainty and indeterminacy. Through the progression of these concepts it reflects on increasing ambitions for machine learning as a creative partner, illustrated with research from Unit 21 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Through indeterminacy are potential future approaches to machine learning and design.

arXiv:2501.09233v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Affordances, a foundational concept in human-computer interaction and design, have traditionally been explained by direct-perception theories, which assume that individuals perceive action possibilities directly from the environment. However, these theories fall short of explaining how affordances are perceived, learned, refined, or misperceived, and how users choose between multiple affordances in dynamic contexts. This paper introduces a novel affordance theory grounded in Computational Rationality, positing that humans construct internal representations of the world based on bounded sensory inputs. Within these internal models, affordances are inferred through two core mechanisms: feature recognition and hypothetical motion trajectories. Our theory redefines affordance perception as a decision-making process, driven by two components: confidence (the perceived likelihood of successfully executing an action) and predicted utility (the expected value of the outcome). By balancing these factors, individuals make informed decisions about which actions to take. Our theory frames affordances perception as dynamic, continuously learned, and refined through reinforcement and feedback. We validate the theory via thought experiments and demonstrate its applicability across diverse types of affordances (e.g., physical, digital, social). Beyond clarifying and generalizing the understanding of affordances across contexts, our theory serves as a foundation for improving design communication and guiding the development of more adaptive and intuitive systems that evolve with user capabilities.

arXiv:2411.19576v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), such as LLaMA and ChatGPT, has opened new opportunities for enhancing recommender systems through improved explainability. This paper provides a systematic literature review focused on leveraging LLMs to generate explanations for recommendations -- a critical aspect for fostering transparency and user trust. We conducted a comprehensive search within the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, covering publications from the launch of ChatGPT (November 2022) to the present (November 2024). Our search yielded 232 articles, but after applying inclusion criteria, only six were identified as directly addressing the use of LLMs in explaining recommendations. This scarcity highlights that, despite the rise of LLMs, their application in explainable recommender systems is still in an early stage. We analyze these select studies to understand current methodologies, identify challenges, and suggest directions for future research. Our findings underscore the potential of LLMs improving explanations of recommender systems and encourage the development of more transparent and user-centric recommendation explanation solutions.

arXiv:2501.10421v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Grading programming assignments is crucial for guiding students to improve their programming skills and coding styles. This study presents an automated grading framework, CodEv, which leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide consistent and constructive feedback. We incorporate Chain of Thought (CoT) prompting techniques to enhance the reasoning capabilities of LLMs and ensure that the grading is aligned with human evaluation. Our framework also integrates LLM ensembles to improve the accuracy and consistency of scores, along with agreement tests to deliver reliable feedback and code review comments. The results demonstrate that the framework can yield grading results comparable to human evaluators, by using smaller LLMs. Evaluation and consistency tests of the LLMs further validate our approach, confirming the reliability of the generated scores and feedback.

arXiv:2501.10847v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Enterprise ontology serves as a foundational framework for semantically comprehending the nature of organizations and the essential components that uphold their integrity. The systematic and conceptual understanding of organizations has garnered significant attention from researchers due to its pivotal role in various domains, including business modeling, enterprise architecture, business process management, context-aware systems, application development, interoperability across diverse systems and platforms, knowledge management, organizational learning and innovation, and conflict resolution within organizations. Achieving a consensus on the concepts related to the fundamental elements that constitute an organization is therefore critical. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis and comparison of existing conceptual models of enterprises as documented in scholarly articles published over the past decade. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each model and introduce a robust framework for their evaluation. To facilitate this evaluation, we propose several pertinent criteria derived from established methodologies for assessing ontologies. Furthermore, we identify contemporary challenges and issues that have been overlooked in prior studies, offering insights and suggestions for future research directions in enterprise modeling. This article ultimately presents a roadmap for enhancing the systematic understanding of organizations through refined enterprise ontology frameworks.