A Teachable Agent to Enhance Elderly's Ikigai

Ikigai is a Japanese term that is argued to be the most used index of well-being in Japanese studies about the elderly. It is often referred to as 'purpose in life' and 'the sense that life is worth living'. Family, work, and friends are common sources of ikigai. However, as people age, they will likely experience a loss of ikigai. Teachable agents (TAs) have long been used in the education field to help students with 'learning by teaching the agent'. It has been demonstrated that they may instill a sense of purpose, leading to growth in students' self-esteem. These benefits of teaching a TA may be experienced by the elderly, thereby improving their ikigai. We present a TA which is designed based on the concept of ikigai with the aim of enhancing the ikigai level of the elderly to help them age more healthily. A user study following the phenomenological approach was conducted, and the results demonstrated the attractiveness and effectiveness of our proposed TA design.