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to do so, the companion system also requires specific capabilities, but
is not activated in the interest of solving a problem. A mountain hiker
could also use the companion for entertainment or relaxation purposes
when taking a break. Emotionality and motivation change in this case
in the dialogue with the companion system itself and not necessarily
in the achievement of goals.
If companion systems are able to perform certain technical
functions, independently perceive their physical and social environment
with the help of their cognitive capabilities, map this information in
internal models, and draw conclusions from this information and
embed it in internal plans and objectives so that they can subsequently
communicate with their users, for example to align human intentions
in certain situations with factual requirements, then companion
systems are capable of doing things that otherwise only humans can
do in an interaction: they can be a friend giving advice, a guide, a
therapist, a coach, an expert, or a teacher. It is also feasible that the
companion can be used to support an inner dialogue. Humans often
use such inner dialogues to look for support in ambivalent or critical
situations, to substitute something, to explore possibilities, to bond,
to improve themselves, to gain insights, or to self-guide themselves.
In such a function, the companion system could use the user's voice
(Puchalska-Wasyl, 2007).
To the extent to which the companion's functions relate to its
empathy and adaptability and to the extent its communication
behavior is geared toward the user's individuality, users will develop
a relationship, feelings and a bond with the companion, in which there
is an I, a YOU, and a social environment. Users will also form a model
of the companion that reflexively includes assumptions about the user
model in the companion. Users have preconceived notions about the
companion's characteristics and will continue to dynamically develop
these over the course of the interaction (also refer to Figure 1).
The quality of such a relationship between human and companion
depends on different factors: Prior experience (priming as described
by James et al. (2000)) and attribution of the companion's behavior
by the user (Bierhoff, 2011) and the projection and transfer of the
user's conscious and unconscious wishes and expectations to a
given companion system. These factors describe cognitive filters that
influence the processing of information in the HCI, but are not created
per se in the context of the HCI. They describe earlier experiences,
expectations and personal characteristics of the users, if these are
relevant for the HCI. Turtle (2010) describes this facilitated projection
process, when not just the function but also the design is human or
animal-like (even without any special cognitive functions): When
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