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Individuals frequently retrieve an intention, but the execution of the task needs to be delayed due to ongoing task demands - so-called delay-execute prospective memory (PM) tasks. We investigated commission errors in the delay-execute paradigm. Participants were told that a PM task is finished (PM task has been executed and is now finished for a final phase) or cancelled (PM task has been cancelled immediately after introduction). We observed commission errors and ongoing task performance in the final phase which included several irrelevant PM cues. In two experiments, we observed significantly more commission errors for cancelled compared to the finished intentions. In Experiment 2, commission errors were eliminated if the final phase required divided attention, regardless of PM task status. In addition, we observed significantly more PM cue interference on the ongoing task in the cancelled compared to the finished group, indicating that the PM task was retrieved in the cancelled group but not in the finished group. As retrieval and execution of the PM task were separated by a delay, the results indicate that commission errors are not always the result of a quick, spontaneous retrieval-execution sequence and may also occur when retrieval and execution are temporally separated.

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Learning in higher education scenarios requires self-directed learning and the challenging task of self-motivation while individual support is rare. The integration of social robots to support learners has already shown promise to benefit the learning process in this area. In this paper, we focus on the applicability of an adaptive robotic tutor in a university setting. To this end, we conducted a long-term field study implementing an adaptive robotic tutor to support students with exam preparation over three sessions during one semester. In a mixed design, we compared the effect of an adaptive tutor to a control condition across all learning sessions. With the aim to benefit not only motivation but also academic success and the learning experience in general, we draw from research in adaptive tutoring, social robots in education, as well as our own prior work in this field. Our results show that opting in for the robotic tutoring is beneficial for students. We found significant subjective knowledge gain and increases in intrinsic motivation regarding the content of the course in general. Finally, participation resulted in a significantly better exam grade compared to students not participating. However, the extended adaptivity of the robotic tutor in the experimental condition did not seem to enhance learning, as we found no significant differences compared to a non-adaptive version of the robot.

Having a mixed-cultural membership becomes increasingly common in our modern society. It is thus beneficial in several ways to create Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) that reflect a mixed-cultural background as well, e.g., for educational settings. For research with such IVAs, it is essential that they are classified as non-native by members of a target culture. In this paper, we focus on variations of IVAs’ speech to create the impression of non-native speakers that are identified as such by speakers of two different mother tongues. In particular, we investigate grammatical mistakes and identify thresholds beyond which the agents is clearly categorised as a non-native speaker. Therefore, we conducted two experiments: one for native speakers of German, and one for native speakers of English. Results of the German study indicate that beyond 10% of word order mistakes and 25% of infinitive mistakes German-speaking IVAs are perceived as non-native speakers. Results of the English study indicate that beyond 50% of omission mistakes and 50% of infinitive mistakes English-speaking IVAs are perceived as non-native speakers. We believe these thresholds constitute helpful guidelines for computational approaches of non-native speaker generation, simplifying research with IVAs in mixed-cultural settings.

It is often necessary to retrieve intentions once a certain cue occurs in the environment. However, such prospective memory (PM) tasks can also be erroneously recalled even though they are no longer relevant and may result in commission errors. According to the dual mechanism account, commission errors occur because the intention is spontaneously retrieved, and there is a subsequent failure to suppress the associated action, resulting in erroneous instant execution. In three experiments, we tested whether failed response suppression is a prerequisite for commission errors. We set up a response lag condition in which participants had to delay their response to ongoing task trials for 1 s (Experiment 1) or 2 s (Experiments 2 and 3) and a pause condition in which the delay occurred between ongoing task trials. In both conditions, participants learned about a PM task and were then told that the PM task was cancelled. In addition, a control group with response lag executed the PM task and was subsequently told the task was finished. Later, all participants encountered several irrelevant PM cues. If failed response suppression is a prerequisite for commission errors, commission error rates should be non-existent in the response lag conditions, because participants had designated time to suppress the PM action. However, commission errors occurred at an equal rate in all lag and pause conditions. Due to this contradiction to the dual mechanism account, we suggest that the process for commission error occurrence should be reconsidered. Because commission errors appear not to be caused by failed response suppression, we discuss the idea that erroneous intentions might be formed when encountering the former PM cue and persist over delays between formation and execution.