Requirements of non-verbal communication in believable synthetic agents

Realism for synthetic characters, both in computer games and conversational agent mediated applications, requires both visual and behavioural fidelity. One significant area of synthetic character behaviour, that has to date received little attention, is non-verbal communication. In identifying the scope and participants of non-verbal communication in computer games we first review the range of spatial and task scenarios that are relevant. We then select four principal categories of non-verbal behaviour: gesture; gaze; proxemics; self-adaptors; and both summarise their role in communication and propose their incorporation in the design of non-player characters. In conclusion we review the question of how to capture the non-verbal behaviour of players or provide them with interaction techniques that might facilitate non-verbal communication with players and non-player characters alike.</p

Exploring persuasive potential of embodied conversational agents utilizing synthetic embodied conversational agents

This study presents synthetic embodied conversational agents, and how they can be used to explore the persuasive potential of real embodied conversational agents. Utilizing a novel Wizard-of-Oz style approach and a direct measure of behavior change we explore whether 'ideal' embodied conversational agents have a similar persuasive impact as real people, and demonstrate the importance of visually perceiving for embodied conversational agents to be persuasive. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.</p

Phantasmagoria: composing interactive content for the humanaquarium

humanaquarium is a mobile performance space which draws upon the traditions of busking and street performance to engage audiences in collaborative, creative play.We describe how the conceptual and physical nature of the performance space affected the way we composed the audio/visual performance content in Phantasmagoria, an interactive art piece built for the humanaquarium environment. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.</p