LISSA — Live Interactive Social Skill Assistance

We present LISSA — Live Interactive Social Skill Assistance — a web-based system that helps people practice their conversational skills by having short conversations with a human like virtual agent and receiving real-time feedback on their nonverbal behavior. In this paper, we describe the development of an interface for these features and examine the viability of real time feedback using a Wizard of Oz prototype. We then evaluated our system using a speed-dating study design. We invited 47 undergraduate male students to interact with staff and randomly assigned them to intervention with LISSA or a self-help control group. Results suggested participants who practiced with the LISSA system were rated as significantly better in nodding when compared to a self-help control group and marginally better in eye contact and gesturing. The system usability and surveys showed that participants found the feedback provided by the system useful, unobtrusive, and easy to understand.