CHS: Small: Collaborative Research: Mobile Language-Based Aids for Intelligent Decisions

该项目将通过将心理决策理论与对人类决策的经验理解相结合，为基于计算机的对话决策系统创建坚实的科学基础，有可能影响许多领域。 人们每天都会做出平凡而关键的消费决定，从购买什么空调过滤器到参加哪种健康保险计划。理性选择理论预测，消费者可以做出选择，以最大限度地提高他们的期望属性。然而，人类认知的局限性加上决策的复杂性，往往要求人们快速发展偏好，并采用多种决策策略来做出选择。次优消费决策会伤害个人、家庭、经济和国家。该项目将提高人们在缺乏领域知识、时间和认知资源时做出明智决策的能力。这些好处是特别相关的老年用户，那些与认知，知觉和运动障碍，以及那些在多任务的环境中运作。过去的研究决策辅助工具集中在单一的决策策略，使用不变的算法，解决真实的决策问题，这是固有的偶然的决策者和任务。此外，移动的对话设置的好处在开发决策辅助工具中没有得到充分利用。这个项目的目标是设计，开发和评估会话，移动的决策辅助工具（MODA）的消费决策的基础上自适应，智能信息检索和决策策略的使用。 三个主要的科学目标和方法是：1。使用观察性研究，捕捉消费者和服务人员在实体店中进行不同类型决策策略时的丰富对话。 2.开发一个决策推理和对话管理模型，（a）使用来自口头消费者交互的输入，（B）应用决策推理规则来预测消费者的决策策略，（c）根据他们的决策策略定制MODA的后续对话，以及（d）利用从产品规格和评论中检索的数据通知消费者的决策过程。 3.进行实地实验，以评估MODA的有效性方面的认知，社会和决策结果之间的不同的决策背景和用户特征。

This project will create a solid science base for computer-based conversational decision systems, by integrating psychological decision theories with an experiential understanding of human decision-making, having the potential to impact many domains. People make mundane and critical consumption decisions daily, ranging from what air conditioning filters to buy to which health insurance plan to enroll. Rational choice theory predicts that consumers can make choices to maximize their desired attributes. However, human cognitive limitations coupled with decision complexities often require people to develop preferences quickly and employ multiple decision strategies to arrive at a choice. Sub-optimal consumption decisions hurt the individual, the family, the economy, and the nation. This project will enhance people's abilities to make informed decisions on-the-go, when they lack domain knowledge, time and cognitive resources for optimal decision-making. These benefits are particularly relevant to aging users, those with cognitive, perceptual and motor impairments, and those functioning in multitask environments.Past research on decision aids has focused on single-decision strategies using invariant algorithms, falling short of solving real decision problems, which are inherently contingent on the decision-maker and task. Further, benefits of a mobile, conversational setting have been under-employed in developing decision aids. The goal of this project is to design, develop, and evaluate conversational, mobile decision-aids (MODA) for consumption decisions based on adaptive, intelligent information retrieval and decision strategy use. The three main scientific objectives and methods are: 1. Capture rich spoken dialog between consumers and service associates as they go through different types of decision-making strategies in a physical store, using observational studies. 2. Develop a decision inference and dialog management model that (a) uses inputs from spoken consumer interactions, (b) applies decision inference rules to predict the consumer's decision strategy, (c) tailors MODA's subsequent dialog to their decision strategy, and (d) informs the consumer's decision-making process with data retrieved from product specifications and reviews. 3. Conduct field experiments to assess MODA effectiveness with respect to cognitive, social, and decision outcomes among varied decision-contexts and user characteristics.