Embodied Conversational Agents: A New Kind of Tool for Motor Rehabilitation?

In this paper, we follow a pluridisciplin ary approach to propose a concept of emotional and social interfaces. This concept has been developed in a social and emotional behavioral model for Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) in the context of virtual therapy1. In our paradigm, a virtual therapist interacts with a patient in order to guide and encourage him to fulfill their exercises. We are interested in the production of a sense of immersion in the patient by the expression of a social as well as emotional presence in ECA. This In order to improve the patient / virtual therapist interaction and thus to stimulate the participation of patient during the rehabilitation therapy.