A qualitative evaluation of social support by an empathic agent

There is a growing interest in employing embodied agents as companions and coaches to achieve beneficial outcomes for users, such as adherence to diets. The goal of our research is to explore how and to what extend embodied agents can provide social support to victims of cyberbullying. To this end, we implemented a prototype of an empathic virtual buddy that uses verbal and nonverbal behavior to comfort users. In order to understand what aspects of interaction with the virtual buddy are perceived as being supportive, we organized a focus group discussion among pedagogical experts. The results indicate that the experts felt supported by interaction with the virtual buddy. In addition, our results demonstrate a method that can be utilized to evaluate embodied agents for vulnerable target audiences (e.g., children), and in sensitive domains (e.g., cyberbullying). © 2013 Springer-Verlag.