Potential and Pitfalls of Digital Voice Assistants in Older Adults With and Without Intellectual Disabilities: Relevance of Participatory Design Elements and Ecologically Valid Field Studies

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Anna Schlomann¹  Hans-Werner Wahl¹  Peter Zentel⁴  Vera Heyl⁵  Leonore Knapp²  Christiane Opfermann¹  Torsten Krämer²  Christian Rietz² 

[1] Network Aging Research, Heidelberg University;Institute for Educational Sciences, Heidelberg University of Education;Institute of Psychology, Heidelberg University;Institute of Prevention, Integration and Rehabilitation Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich;Institute for Special Needs Education, Heidelberg University of Education

关键词: speech assistant;    smart speaker;    aging;    old age;    digitization;    ecological validity;    digital diary;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684012

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

While digital voice assistants (VAs) are increasingly becoming part of everyday life (Auxier, 2019),specific user groups that might benefit from such technology are often not considered in research.This applies to older adults (Stigall et al., 2019), a population with pronounced heterogeneity interms of cognitive, sensory and functional competencies. Given the rapid expansion of digital tools,it is important to consider the use of VAs as a promising tool able to maintain and enhance socialparticipation, autonomy, and leisure activities for a wide range of older adults. There is still a digitaldivide between younger and older generations (Anderson, 2019) and older adults might benefit to asmaller extent from the advantages of new technologies such as VAs. Older people with intellectualdisabilities are at particular risk of digital exclusion (Ehlers et al., 2020) and digital technologiessuch as VAs have hardly been evaluated for this target group (e.g., Smith et al., 2020). In this opinionpaper, we synthesize current research in the context of VAs for older adults. Building on this, wepropose specific research designs to provide better insights into the adoption and use of VAs inadvanced age.

【 授权许可】

CC BY