# VITA: A Multi-modal LLM-based System for Longitudinal, Autonomous, and Adaptive Robotic Mental Well-being Coaching

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.09740 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09740/

## Key facts

- Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 15 Dec 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 13 of 13)

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- [Human-Inspired Context-Selective Multimodal Memory for Social Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.12081/) (2026)
- [Exploration of Foundation Model-Based Robots in Patient and Elderly Care](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.10208/) (2026)
- [Responsible Personalisation: The Double-Edged Sword of Personalisation in Human-Robot Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06344/) (2026)
- [From Momentary Emotion Inference to Sustained Emotion Support: Evaluating a Companion Agent in a Longitudinal Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16344/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recently, several works have explored if and how robotic coaches can promote and maintain mental well-being in different settings. However, findings from these studies revealed that these robotic coaches are not ready to be used and deployed in real-world settings due to several limitations that span from technological challenges to coaching success. To overcome these challenges, this paper presents VITA, a novel multi-modal LLM-based system that allows robotic coaches to autonomously adapt to the coachee's multi-modal behaviours (facial valence and speech duration) and deliver coaching exercises in order to promote mental well-being in adults. We identified five objectives that correspond to the challenges in the recent literature, and we show how the VITA system addresses these via experimental validations that include one in-lab pilot study (N=4) that enabled us to test different robotic coach configurations (pre-scripted, generic, and adaptive models) and inform its design for using it in the real world, and one real-world study (N=17) conducted in a workplace over 4 weeks. Our results show that: (i) coachees perceived the VITA adaptive and generic configurations more positively than the pre-scripted one, and they felt understood and heard by the adaptive robotic coach, (ii) the VITA adaptive robotic coach kept learning successfully by personalising to each coachee over time and did not detect any interaction ruptures during the coaching, (iii) coachees had significant mental well-being improvements via the VITA-based robotic coach practice. The code for the VITA system is openly available via: https://github.com/Cambridge-AFAR/VITA-system.