Publications

A full list of publications is also available on Google Scholar.

• The Mobile Health Intervention for Rural Patients with Atrial Fibrillation: A Randomized Controlled Trial
  JW Magnani, K Plevniak, D Ferry, D Martin, MM Brooks, E Kimani, et al.
  International Journal of Cardiology, 133575
  2025
• A Mobile Relational Agent to Enhance Atrial Fibrillation Self-care: Primary and Secondary Outcomes of a Randomized Controlled Trial
  JW Magnani, CM Lalama, KZ Abebe, D Ferry, BL Rollman, MQ Lancet, et al.
  American Heart Journal
  2025
• Aligning Language Models for Icelandic Legal Text Summarization
  Þ Hrafn Harðarson, H Loftsson, S Ólafsson
  The Joint 25th Nordic Conference on Computational Linguistics and 11th Conference on Natural Language Processing
  2025
• The Development and Feasibility of a Triage System for Use in Primary Care
  MF Helgason, KS Hlífarson, B Olsen, SO Ellertsson, H Loftsson, et al.
  2024 IEEE 12th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI)
  2024
• Evaluating Icelandic Sentiment Analysis Models Trained on Translated Data
  ÓA Jóhannsson, BH Arndal, EÖ Jónsson, S Ólafsson, H Loftsson
  Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Under-resourced Languages (SIGUL)
  2024
• Exploring the Potential of Virtual Agents in Atrial Fibrillation Management: Insights from a Randomized Trial
  M Fallah, T Bickmore, S Olafsson, M Paasche-Orlow, AJ Mrkva, JW Magnani
  Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA '24)
  2024
• Accommodating User Expressivity while Maintaining Safety for a Virtual Alcohol Misuse Counselor
  S Olafsson, P Pedrelli, BC Wallace, T Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA '23)
  2023
• Conversational Assessment of Mild Cognitive Impairment with Virtual Agents
  EE Hurstak, S Olafsson, TK O'Leary, HJ Cabral, M Paasche-Orlow, T Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA '23)
  2023
• Community Dynamics in Technospiritual Interventions: Lessons Learned from a Church-Based mHealth Pilot
  TK O'Leary, D Parmar, S Olafsson, M Paasche-Orlow, T Bickmore, AG Parker
  CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  2022
• Design and Rationale of the Mobile Health Intervention for Rural Atrial Fibrillation
  JW Magnani, D Ferry, G Swabe, D Martin, X Chen, MM Brooks, E Kimani, MK Paasche-Orlow, S Ólafsson, T Bickmore, et al.
  American Heart Journal, 252, 16–25, Elsevier
  2022
• Designing Empathic Virtual Agents: Manipulating Animation, Voice, Rendering, and Empathy to Create Persuasive Agents
  D Parmar, S Olafsson, D Utami, P Murali, T Bickmore
  Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 36(1):1–24, Springer
  2022
• Techno-spiritual Engagement: Mechanisms for Improving Uptake of mHealth Apps Designed for Church Members
  HS Yun, S Zhou, E Kimani, S Olafsson, TK O'Leary, D Parmar, J Hoffman, S Intille, M Paasche-Orlow, T Bickmore
  2022
• Mitigating Patient and Consumer Safety Risks When Using Conversational Assistants for Medical Information: Exploratory Mixed Methods Experiment
  TW Bickmore, S Ólafsson, TK O'Leary
  Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(11):e30704
  2021
• A Hybrid Structured-Neural Dialog System for Automated Counseling
  S Olafsson
  PhD Thesis, Northeastern University
  2021
• Black Men's Experiences with Health Care: Individuals' Accounts of Challenges, Suggestions for Change, and the Potential Utility of Virtual Agent Technology to Assist Black Men with Health Management
  J Kramer, L Yinusa-Nyahkoon, S Olafsson, B Penti, E Woodhams, T Bickmore, BW Jack
  Qualitative Health Research, 31(10):1772–1785, SAGE Publications
  2021
• Diversity Informatics: Reducing Racial and Gender Bias with Virtual Agents
  T Bickmore, D Parmar, E Kimani, S Olafsson
  21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 25–32
  2021
• ‘More Like a Person than Reading Text in a Machine’: Characterizing User Choice of Embodied Agents vs. Conventional GUIs on Smartphones
  S Olafsson, D Parmar, E Kimani, TK O'Leary, T Bickmore
  Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  2021
• Community-Based Cultural Tailoring of Virtual Agents
  TK O'Leary, E Stowell, E Kimani, D Parmar, S Olafsson, J Hoffman, AG Parker, MK Paasche-Orlow, T Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
  2020
• Motivating Health Behavior Change with Humorous Virtual Agents
  S Olafsson, TK O'Leary, TW Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
  2020
• Navigating the Combinatorics of Virtual Agent Design Space to Maximize Persuasion
  D Parmar, S Ólafsson, D Utami, P Murali, T Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS), 1010–1018
  2020
• Towards a Computational Framework for Automating Substance Use Counseling with Virtual Agents
  S Olafsson, B Wallace, TW Bickmore
  AAMAS, 966–974
  2020
• Coerced Change-Talk with Conversational Agents Promotes Confidence in Behavior Change
  S Olafsson, T O'Leary, T Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 13th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare
  2019
• Can the Use of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant for Medical Information Result in Patient Harm?
  TW Bickmore, H Trinh, S Olafsson, et al.
  JCOM, 26(1)
  2019
• Patient and Consumer Safety Risks When Using Conversational Assistants for Medical Information: An Observational Study of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant
  TW Bickmore, H Trinh, S Olafsson, TK O'Leary, R Asadi, NM Rickles, R Cruz
  Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(9):e11510
  2018
• Safety First: Conversational Agents for Health Care
  T Bickmore, H Trinh, R Asadi, S Olafsson
  Human–Computer Interaction Series, Springer, 33–57
  2018
• Looking the Part: The Effect of Attire and Setting on Perceptions of a Virtual Health Counselor
  D Parmar, S Olafsson, D Utami, T Bickmore
  Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 301–306
  2018
• Virtual Counselor for Patients in Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use
  S Olafsson, T O'Leary, C Lee, T Bickmore
  GREATS18 at the ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
  2018
• That's a Rap: Increasing Engagement with Rap Music Performance by Virtual Agents
  S Olafsson, E Kimani, R Asadi, T Bickmore
  International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 325–334, Springer
  2017
• Increasing Engagement with Virtual Agents Using Automatic Camera Motion
  L Ring, D Utami, S Olafsson, T Bickmore
  International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 29–39, Springer
  2016
• Learning Icelandic Language and Culture in Virtual Reykjavik: Starting to Talk
  B Bédi, B Arnbjörnsdóttir, HH Vilhjálmsson, HE Helgadóttir, S Ólafsson, E Björgvinsson
  CALL Communities and Culture — Short Papers from EUROCALL, 37–43
  2016
• Starting a Conversation with Strangers in Virtual Reykjavik: Explicit Announcement of Presence
  S Ólafsson, B Bédi, HE Helgdóttir, B Arnbjörnsdóttir, HH Vilhjálmsson
  Proceedings from the 3rd European Symposium on Multimodal Communication, Dublin, 62–68
  2016
• “That Reminds Me…”: Towards a Computational Model of Topic Development Within and Across Conversations
  S Olafsson, T Bickmore
  Just Talking — Casual Talk among Humans and Machines Workshop, LREC 2016
  2016
• When Strangers Meet: Collaborative Construction of Procedural Conversation in Embodied Conversational Agents
  S Ólafsson
  2015
• We Never Stop Behaving: The Challenge of Specifying and Integrating Continuous Behavior
  HH Vilhjálmsson, EI Björgvinsson, HE Helgadóttir, S Ólafsson
  Workshop on Architectures and Standards for IVAs at the 14th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
  2014