Leveraging AI-Generated Emotional Self-Voice to Nudge People towards their Ideal Selves
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3706598.3713359.pdf
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6.15 MB
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Author(s)
Fang, Cathy Mengying
Chua, Phoebe
Chan, Samantha
Leong, Joanne
Bao, Andria
Maes, Pattie
Date Issued
April 25, 2025
Publisher
ACM|CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Citation
Cathy Mengying Fang, Phoebe Chua, Samantha W. T. Chan, Joanne Leong, Andria Bao, and Pattie Maes. 2025. Leveraging AI-Generated Emotional Self-Voice to Nudge People towards their Ideal Selves. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 58, 1–20.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Emotions, shaped by past experiences, significantly influence decision-making and goal pursuit. Traditional cognitive-behavioral techniques for personal development rely on mental imagery to envision ideal selves, but may be less effective for individuals who struggle with visualization. This paper introduces Emotional Self-Voice (ESV), a novel system combining emotionally expressive language models and voice cloning technologies to render customized responses in the user’s own voice. We investigate the potential of ESV to nudge individuals towards their ideal selves in a study with 60 participants. Across all three conditions (ESV, text-only, and mental imagination), we observed an increase in resilience, confidence, motivation, and goal commitment, and the ESV condition was perceived as uniquely engaging and personalized. We discuss the implications of designing generated self-voice systems as a personalized behavioral intervention for different scenarios.
Description
CHI ’25, Yokohama, Japan
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713359
