Virtual Human-Delivered Interviews for Patients With Chronic Pain: Feasibility, Acceptability, and a Pilot Randomized Trial of Standard Medical, Psychosocial, and Educational Interviews.

OBJECTIVE: Seminal advances in virtual human (VH) technology have introduced highly interactive, computer-animated VH interviewers. Their utility for aiding in chronic pain care is unknown. We developed three interactive telehealth VH interviews-a standard pain-focused, a psychosocial risk factor, and a pain psychology and neuroscience educational interview. We then conducted a preliminary investigation of their feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy. We also experimentally compared a human and a computer-generated VH voice. METHODS: Patients ( N = 94, age = 22-78 years) with chronic musculoskeletal pain were randomly assigned to the standard ( n = 31), psychosocial ( n = 34), or educational ( n = 29) VH interview and one of the two VH voices. Acceptability ratings included patient satisfaction and expectations/evaluations of the VH interview. Outcomes assessed at baseline and about 1-month postinterview were pain intensity, interference, emotional distress, pain catastrophizing, and readiness for pain self-management. Linear mixed-effects models were used to test between- and within-condition effects. RESULTS: Acceptability ratings showed that satisfaction with the VH and telehealth format was generally high, with no condition differences. Study attrition was low ( n = 5). Intent-to-treat-analyses showed that, compared with the standard interview, the psychosocial interview yielded a significantly greater reduction in pain interference ( p = .049, d = 0.43) and a marginally greater reduction in pain intensity ( p = .054, d = 0.36), whereas the educational interview led to a marginally greater yet nonsignificant increase in readiness for change ( p = .095, d = 0.24), as well as several significant improvements within-condition. Results did not differ by VH voice. CONCLUSIONS: Interactive VH interviewers hold promise for improving chronic pain care, including probing for psychosocial risk factors and providing pain-related education.

Predicting Office Workers' Productivity: A Machine Learning Approach Integrating Physiological, Behavioral, and Psychological Indicators.

This research pioneers the application of a machine learning framework to predict the perceived productivity of office workers using physiological, behavioral, and psychological features. Two approaches were compared: the baseline model, predicting productivity based on physiological and behavioral characteristics, and the extended model, incorporating predictions of psychological states such as stress, eustress, distress, and mood. Various machine learning models were utilized and compared to assess their predictive accuracy for psychological states and productivity, with XGBoost emerging as the top performer. The extended model outperformed the baseline model, achieving an R2 of 0.60 and a lower MAE of 10.52, compared to the baseline model's R2 of 0.48 and MAE of 16.62. The extended model's feature importance analysis revealed valuable insights into the key predictors of productivity, shedding light on the role of psychological states in the prediction process. Notably, mood and eustress emerged as significant predictors of productivity. Physiological and behavioral features, including skin temperature, electrodermal activity, facial movements, and wrist acceleration, were also identified. Lastly, a comparative analysis revealed that wearable devices (Empatica E4 and H10 Polar) outperformed workstation addons (Kinect camera and computer-usage monitoring application) in predicting productivity, emphasizing the potential utility of wearable devices as an independent tool for assessment of productivity. Implementing the model within smart workstations allows for adaptable environments that boost productivity and overall well-being among office workers.

Preventing Prescription Drug Misuse in Work Settings: Efficacy of a Brief Intervention in Health Consciousness.

BACKGROUND: It is becoming more commonplace for employees to use prescription medication outside of intended use. Opioid and other prescription misuse has implications for the health and productivity of workers. Easy-to-access webinars that help employees learn about alternatives to prescription use may decrease risk. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of an interactive but brief health consciousness and prescription drug intervention for a diverse sample of employees and show effectiveness via both Internet-delivered webinar and classroom delivery. METHODS: Employees from a variety of workplaces filled out pre- and post-questionnaires upon completion of a one-hour long intervention. RESULTS: A total of 114 participants completed the pre- and post-questionnaires. Results showed that, compared with before the training, participants reported significantly more knowledge about prescription drug misuse and alternatives to prescription drug use after the training (t113=7.91, P<.001). Moreover, the medium of presentation (ie, face-to-face vs webinar) did not significantly impact effectiveness of the training (F1,98=1.15, P=.29). CONCLUSIONS: In both webinar and classroom formats, participants gained knowledge about alternatives to prescription drug use. This intervention appears to be beneficial to employees and assists in the awareness of prescription drug use in general and in the workplace.

Stress appraisal in the workplace and its associations with productivity and mood: Insights from a multimodal machine learning analysis.

Previous studies have primarily focused on predicting stress arousal, encompassing physiological, behavioral, and psychological responses to stressors, while neglecting the examination of stress appraisal. Stress appraisal involves the cognitive evaluation of a situation as stressful or non-stressful, and as a threat/pressure or a challenge/opportunity. In this study, we investigated several research questions related to the association between states of stress appraisal (i.e., boredom, eustress, coexisting eustress-distress, distress) and various factors such as stress levels, mood, productivity, physiological and behavioral responses, as well as the most effective ML algorithms and data signals for predicting stress appraisal. The results support the Yerkes-Dodson law, showing that a moderate stress level is associated with increased productivity and positive mood, while low and high levels of stress are related to decreased productivity and negative mood, with distress overpowering eustress when they coexist. Changes in stress appraisal relative to physiological and behavioral features were examined through the lenses of stress arousal, activity engagement, and performance. An XGBOOST model achieved the best prediction accuracies of stress appraisal, reaching 82.78% when combining physiological and behavioral features and 79.55% using only the physiological dataset. The small accuracy difference of 3% indicates that physiological data alone may be adequate to accurately predict stress appraisal, and the feature importance results identified electrodermal activity, skin temperature, and blood volume pulse as the most useful physiologic features. Implementing these models within work environments can serve as a foundation for designing workplace policies, practices, and stress management strategies that prioritize the promotion of eustress while reducing distress and boredom. Such efforts can foster a supportive work environment to enhance employee well-being and productivity.

Customizing virtual interpersonal skills training applications may not improve trainee performance.

While some theoretical perspectives imply that the context of a virtual training should be customized to match the intended context where those skills would ultimately be applied, others suggest this might not be necessary for learning. It is important to determine whether manipulating context matters for performance in training applications because customized virtual training systems made for specific use cases are more costly than generic "off-the-shelf" ones designed for a broader set of users. Accordingly, we report a study where military cadets use a virtual platform to practice their negotiation skills, and are randomly assigned to one of two virtual context conditions: military versus civilian. Out of 28 measures capturing performance in the negotiation, there was only one significant result: cadets in the civilian condition politely ask the agent to make an offer significantly more than those in the military condition. These results imply that-for this interpersonal skills application, and perhaps ones like it-virtual context may matter very little for performance during social skills training, and that commercial systems may yield real benefits to military scenarios with little-to-no modification.

Cognitive performance, creativity and stress levels of neurotypical young adults under different white noise levels.

Noise is often considered a distractor; however recent studies suggest that sub-attentive individuals or individuals diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can benefit from white noise to enhance their cognitive performance. Research regarding the effect of white noise on neurotypical adults presents mixed results, thus the implications of white noise on the neurotypical population remain unclear. Thus, this study investigates the effect of 2 white noise conditions, white noise level at 45 dB and white noise level at 65 dB, on the cognitive performance, creativity, and stress levels of neurotypical young adults in a private office space. These conditions are compared to a baseline condition where participants are exposed to the office ambient noise. Our findings showed that the white noise level at 45 dB resulted in better cognitive performance in terms of sustained attention, accuracy, and speed of performance as well as enhanced creativity and lower stress levels. On the other hand, the 65 dB white noise condition led to improved working memory but higher stress levels, which leads to the conclusion that different tasks might require different noise levels for optimal performance. These results lay the foundation for the integration of white noise into office workspaces as a tool to enhance office workers' performance.

The impact of security countermeasures on human behavior during active shooter incidents.

Active shooter incidents represent an increasing threat to American society, especially in commercial and educational buildings. In recent years, a wide variety of security countermeasures have been recommended by public and governmental agencies. Many of these countermeasures are aimed to increase building security, yet their impact on human behavior when an active shooter incident occurs remains underexplored. To fill this research gap, we conducted virtual experiments to evaluate the impact of countermeasures on human behavior during active shooter incidents. A total of 162 office workers and middle/high school teachers were recruited to respond to an active shooter incident in virtual office and school buildings with or without the implementation of multiple countermeasures. The experiment results showed countermeasures significantly influenced participants' response time and decisions (e.g., run, hide, fight). Participants' responses and perceptions of the active shooter incident were also contingent on their daily roles, as well as building and social contexts. Teachers had more concerns for occupants' safety than office workers. Moreover, teachers had more positive perceptions of occupants in the school, whereas office workers had more positive perceptions of occupants in the office.

The field of human building interaction for convergent research and innovation for intelligent built environments.

Human-Building Interaction (HBI) is a convergent field that represents the growing complexities of the dynamic interplay between human experience and intelligence within built environments. This paper provides core definitions, research dimensions, and an overall vision for the future of HBI as developed through consensus among 25 interdisciplinary experts in a series of facilitated workshops. Three primary areas contribute to and require attention in HBI research: humans (human experiences, performance, and well-being), buildings (building design and operations), and technologies (sensing, inference, and awareness). Three critical interdisciplinary research domains intersect these areas: control systems and decision making, trust and collaboration, and modeling and simulation. Finally, at the core, it is vital for HBI research to center on and support equity, privacy, and sustainability. Compelling research questions are posed for each primary area, research domain, and core principle. State-of-the-art methods used in HBI studies are discussed, and examples of original research are offered to illustrate opportunities for the advancement of HBI research.

Working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: Impact on office worker productivity and work experience.

BACKGROUND: With the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations embraced Work From Home (WFH). An important component of transitioning to WFH is the effect on workers, particularly related to their productivity and work experience. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to examine how worker-, workspace-, and work-related factors affected productivity and time spent at a workstation on a typical WFH day during the pandemic. METHODS: An online questionnaire was designed and administered to collect the necessary information. Data from 988 respondents were included in the analyses. RESULTS: Overall perception of productivity level among workers did not change relative to their in-office productivity before the pandemic. Female, older, and high-income workers were likely to report increased productivity. Productivity was positively influenced by better mental and physical health statuses, having a teenager, increased communication with coworkers and having a dedicated room for work. Number of hours spent at a workstation increased by approximately 1.5 hours during a typical WFH day. Longer hours were reported by individuals who had school age children, owned an office desk or an adjustable chair, and had adjusted their work hours. CONCLUSION: The findings highlight key factors for employers and employees to consider for improving the WFH experience.

Impacts of Working From Home During COVID-19 Pandemic on Physical and Mental Well-Being of Office Workstation Users.

OBJECTIVE: To understand impacts of social, behavioral and physical factors on well-being of office workstation users during COVID-19 work from home (WFH). METHODS: A questionnaire was deployed from April 24 to June 11, 2020 and 988 responses were valid. Linear regression, multinomial logistic regression and chi-square tests were used to understand factors associated with overall physical and mental health statuses and number of new physical and mental health issues. RESULTS: Decreased overall physical and mental well-being after WFH were associated with physical exercise, food intake, communication with coworkers, children at home, distractions while working, adjusted work hours, workstation set-up and satisfaction with workspace indoor environmental factors. CONCLUSION: This study highlights factors that impact workers' physical and mental health well-being while WFH and provides a foundation for considering how to best support a positive WFH experience.

Negotiating Time and Space When Working From Home: Experiences During COVID-19.

Stay-at-home mandates following the COVID-19 pandemic increased work from home (WFH). While WFH offers many benefits, navigating work in nontraditional contexts can be a challenge. The objective of this study was to explore the benefits and challenges of WFH during COVID-19 to identify supports and resources necessary. Comments from two free-response questions on a survey regarding experiences of WFH (N = 648, N = 366) were analyzed using inductive qualitative content analysis. Four themes emerged: time use, considerations of working in the home space, intersections between work-life and home-life, and temporality of WFH as situated within a pandemic. Across all themes were concerns related to participation in both work and home roles, work performance, and well-being. Findings highlight the importance of support during times of disruption of occupational patterns, roles, and routines. Despite challenges, many individuals hoped to continue WFH. Organizations should consider the complex intersections of work-life and home-life to develop supportive policies and resources.

Worker Perspectives on Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Office Workspaces: Implications for the Future of Office Work.

Workplace environments have a significant impact on worker performance, health, and well-being. With machine learning capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI) can be developed to automate individualized adjustments to work environments (e.g., lighting, temperature) and to facilitate healthier worker behaviors (e.g., posture). Worker perspectives on incorporating AI into office workspaces are largely unexplored. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore office workers' views on including AI in their office workspace. Six focus group interviews with a total of 45 participants were conducted. Interview questions were designed to generate discussion on benefits, challenges, and pragmatic considerations for incorporating AI into office settings. Sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using an iterative approach. Two primary constructs emerged. First, participants shared perspectives related to preferences and concerns regarding communication and interactions with the technology. Second, numerous conversations highlighted the dualistic nature of a system that collects large amounts of data; that is, the potential benefits for behavior change to improve health and the pitfalls of trust and privacy. Across both constructs, there was an overarching discussion related to the intersections of AI with the complexity of work performance. Numerous thoughts were shared relative to future AI solutions that could enhance the office workplace. This study's findings indicate that the acceptability of AI in the workplace is complex and dependent upon the benefits outweighing the potential detriments. Office worker needs are complex and diverse, and AI systems should aim to accommodate individual needs.

Perceived support for promotion-focused and prevention-focused goals: associations with well-being in unmarried and married couples.

Perceived emotional support from close relationship partners in times of stress is a major predictor of well-being. However, recent research has suggested that, beyond emotional support, perceived support for achieving personal goals is also important for well-being. The present study extends such research by demonstrating that associations of perceived goal support with well-being differ depending on how people represent their goals and the general motivational context in which they pursue these goals. Among unmarried romantic partners, for whom the context of the relationship presumably is largely attainment oriented, perceived support for attainment-relevant (or promotion-focused) goals independently predicted relationship and personal well-being, whereas perceived support for maintenance-relevant (or prevention-focused) goals did not. In contrast, among married partners, for whom the context of the relationship presumably is both attainment and maintenance oriented, perceived support for both promotion-focused and prevention-focused goals independently predicted well-being. We discuss the implications for forecasting and improving well-being among married couples.

Motivations for prevention or promotion following social exclusion: being rejected versus being ignored.

Social exclusion evokes powerful motivations and emotions. The present studies examined how these motivations and emotions might differ following exclusion that is explicit, active, and direct (i.e., when one is rejected) versus implicit, passive, and indirect (i.e., when one is ignored). It was hypothesized that being rejected should produce a sense of social loss and lead to more prevention-focused responses, including withdrawal from social contact, thoughts about actions one should not have taken, and increased feelings of agitation. In contrast, being ignored should produce a sense of failure to achieve social gain and lead to more promotion-focused responses, including reengagement in social contact, thoughts about actions one should have taken, and increased feelings of dejection. These hypotheses were supported across 4 studies in which people recalled or underwent experiences of being rejected or ignored. Past research on active versus passive exclusion is reexamined and found to be consistent with these hypotheses as well.

Effectiveness of an Empathic Chatbot in Combating Adverse Effects of Social Exclusion on Mood.

From past research it is well known that social exclusion has detrimental consequences for mental health. To deal with these adverse effects, socially excluded individuals frequently turn to other humans for emotional support. While chatbots can elicit social and emotional responses on the part of the human interlocutor, their effectiveness in the context of social exclusion has not been investigated. In the present study, we examined whether an empathic chatbot can serve as a buffer against the adverse effects of social ostracism. After experiencing exclusion on social media, participants were randomly assigned to either talk with an empathetic chatbot about it (e.g., "I'm sorry that this happened to you") or a control condition where their responses were merely acknowledged (e.g., "Thank you for your feedback"). Replicating previous research, results revealed that experiences of social exclusion dampened the mood of participants. Interacting with an empathetic chatbot, however, appeared to have a mitigating impact. In particular, participants in the chatbot intervention condition reported higher mood than those in the control condition. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications, as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Emotion Regulation in the Prisoner's Dilemma: Effects of Reappraisal on Behavioral Measures and Cardiovascular Measures of Challenge and Threat.

The current study examines cooperation and cardiovascular responses in individuals that were defected on by their opponent in the first round of an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In this scenario, participants were either primed with the emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal or no emotion regulation strategy, and their opponent either expressed an amused smile or a polite smile after the results were presented. We found that cooperation behavior decreased in the no emotion regulation group when the opponent expressed an amused smile compared to a polite smile. In the cardiovascular measures, we found significant differences between the emotion regulation conditions using the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of challenge and threat. However, the cardiovascular measures of participants instructed with the reappraisal strategy were only weakly comparable with a threat state of the BPS model, which involves decreased blood flow and perception of greater task demands than resources to cope with those demands. Conversely, the cardiovascular measures of participants without an emotion regulation were only weakly comparable with a challenge state of the BPS model, which involves increased blood flow and perception of having enough or more resources to cope with task demands.

Virtual Human Role Players for Studying Social Factors in Organizational Decision Making.

The cyber domain of military operations presents many challenges. A unique element is the social dynamic between cyber operators and their leadership because of the novel subject matter expertise involved in conducting technical cyber tasks, so there will be situations where senior leaders might have much less domain knowledge or no experience at all relative to the warfighters who report to them. Nonetheless, it will be important for junior cyber operators to convey convincing information relevant to a mission in order to persuade or influence a leader to make informed decisions. The power dynamic will make it difficult for the junior cyber operator to successfully influence a higher ranking leader. Here we present a perspective with a sketch for research paradigm(s) to study how different factors (normative vs. informational social influence, degree of transparency, and perceived appropriateness of making suggestions) might interact with differential social power dynamics of individuals in cyber decision-making contexts. Finally, we contextualize this theoretical perspective for the research paradigms in viable training technologies.

Team Resilience Training in the Workplace: E-Learning Adaptation, Measurement Model, and Two Pilot Studies.

BACKGROUND: The majority of resilience interventions focus on the individual. Workplace resilience is a growing field of research. Given the ever-increasing interconnectedness in businesses, teamwork is a guarantee. There is also growing recognition that resilience functions at the team level. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our work was to address three shortcomings in the study of workplace resilience interventions: lack of interventions focusing on group-level or team resilience, the need for brief interventions, and the need for more theoretical precision in intervention studies. METHODS: The authors took an established evidence-based program (Team Resilience) and modified it based on these needs. A working model for brief intervention evaluation distinguishes outcomes that are proximal (perceptions that the program improved resilience) and distal (dispositional resilience). A total of 7 hypotheses tested the model and program efficacy. RESULTS: Two samples (n=118 and n=181) of engineering firms received the Web-based training and provided immediate reactions in a posttest-only design. The second sample also included a control condition (n=201). The findings support the model and program efficacy. For example, workplace resilience was greater in the intervention group than in the control group. Other findings suggest social dissemination effects, equal outcomes for employees at different stress levels, and greater benefit for females. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary research provides evidence for the capabilities of e-learning modules to effectively promote workplace resilience and a working model of team resilience.

Natural Language Understanding Performance & Use Considerations in Virtual Medical Encounters.

A virtual standardized patient (VSP) prototype was tested for natural language understanding (NLU) performance. The conversational VSP was evaluated in a controlled 61 subject study over four repetitions of a patient case. The prototype achieved more than 92% appropriate response rate from naïve users on their first attempt and results were stable by their fourth case repetition. This level of performance exceeds prior efforts and is at a level comparable of accuracy as seen in human conversational patient training, with caveats. This level of performance was possible due to the use of a unified medical taxonomy underpinning that allows virtual patient language training to be applied to all cases in our system as opposed to benefiting a single patient case.