Demonstrating GRACE: Our Embodied Voice Assistant Providing Cognitive Interventions

Our demo describes the development and interaction of our first prototype of GRACE, an embodied voice assistant. GRACE was designed to provide voice-based cognitive interventions to its users, and was first piloted with healthy adults in its current version. The body of GRACE, which was 3D printed, encases the internal components such as the Raspberry Pi, reSpeaker microphone, an AMOLED screen, and a bluetooth speaker. We utilized an open-source robotics platform and their simulation software for executing the script and commands for the voice interactions. A text-to-speech voice from ElevenLabs was used as the voice for GRACE. We were able to develop and design four activities, including two cognitive interactions based on cognitive stimulation therapy. The interaction consisted of an introductory warm-up activity, two cognitive interventions, and a concluding activity.