2009 - 2011

We live in an environment surrounded by computers. They are used as a persuasive tool to change people’s thoughts and behaviors. In addition, Ambient Intelligence Environment is also utilized to persuade people in that environment in a stronger and more intelligent manner. Relying on various context sensing and network infrastructure, we are able to know the context a person is situated in and understand the overall information, thereby leading us to intervene and persuade just at the right time and in the right place. However, continuation of these diverse and complex persuasions can cause problems in our daily lives. The intervention and persuasion that the technology brings forth can be annoying as they occur continuously throughout the day, requiring immediate actions to take place repeatedly. Furthermore, these persuasions become bothersome obstacles while the user is working on a task. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a new approach for persuasion, namely, Calm Persuasion that could greatly reduce the cognitive load on the users and at the same time change the users’ behavior and thoughts in a natural manner.