Deliverable 4.4 - INSEAD CALT

AtGentive IST-4-027529-STP - Attentive Agents for Collaborative Learnersrestoration are most useful when dealing the user working on several differentapplications, or several devices. This section reports the experimental work in progressto evaluate the effects that support to context restoration could have in multi-applicationenvironments.The first important result of this experiment is that it is possible, with the currenttechnologies, to implement support to context restoration as described in the AtGentiveConceptual Framework. It is difficult to make a preliminary analysis based on the smallsample currently available. However, by looking at the partial results, we can see that:task resumption times tend to be significantly smaller in the experimental group than inthe control group. Users in the experimental group generally understood easily and usedappropriately the tools offered by the interface, they also declared to like to use theinterface. Users in the experimental group tend to work faster than users in the controlgroup. Currently, we don't have enough data to allow us to detect differences based onage, gender, lateralization, computer experience, or any other relevant subjects'characteristics. See Appendix 12 for further details.5.6 General applicability of the Reasoning ModuleAfter the AtGentSchool pilot we are interested in testing how well the Reasoning Module(RM) may support user attention with applications that are not limited to those exploredin the course of the project. Also we want to explore the cases in which the RM interactswith several user-level applications. By accepting events from several applicationssimultaneously, we assume the RM could be capable of supporting the management ofattention within a good part of the tasks the user will have to perform on the computer.A simple test platform has been implemented for experimenting with the RM in this way.Currently, the platform is being used to run an experiment. The purpose is to observe thepotential effects of a service supporting users in resuming previously interrupted tasks bylowering the cognitive load that it takes to remember to do so. The intention is to verifythat resuming interrupted tasks will nearly always require cognitive effort, and thatdisplaying a reminder of the interrupted task right after the interrupting task has beencompleted will prove beneficial with respect to the time that it will take to resume theinterrupted task and the ease with which one accomplishes the resumption. SeeAppendix 13 for further details.Del 4.4: AtGentive Final Evaluation Report page 78