A high-level architecture for believable social agents

The creation of virtual humans capable of behaving and interacting realistically with each other requires the development of autonomous believable social agents. Standard goal-oriented approaches are not well suited to it because they don't take into account important characteristics identified by the social sciences. This paper tackles the issue of a general social reasoning mechanism, discussing its basic functional requirements using a sociological perspective, and proposing a high-level architecture based on Roles, Norms, Values and Type

A high-level architecture for believable social agents

The creation or virtual humans capable of behaving and interacting realistically with each other requires the development of autonomous believable social agents. Standard goal-oriented approaches are not well suited to it because they don't take into account important characteristics identified by the social sciences. The paper tackles the issue of a general social reasoning mechanism, discussing its basic functional requirements using a sociological perspective, and proposing a high-level architecture based on roles, norms, values and type

Affect and believability in game characters:a review of the use of affective computing in games

Virtual agents are important in many digital environments. Designing a character that highly engages users in terms of interaction is an intricate task constrained by many requirements. One aspect that has gained more attention recently is the effective dimension of the agent. Several studies have addressed the possibility of developing an affect-aware system for a better user experience. Particularly in games, including emotional and social features in NPCs adds depth to the characters, enriches interaction possibilities, and combined with the basic level of competence, creates a more appealing game. Design requirements for emotionally intelligent NPCs differ from general autonomous agents with the main goal being a stronger player-agent relationship as opposed to problem solving and goal assessment. Nevertheless, deploying an affective module into NPCs adds to the complexity of the architecture and constraints. In addition, using such composite NPC in games seems beyond current technology, despite some brave attempts. However, a MARPO-type modular architecture would seem a useful starting point for adding emotions

Towards Learning ‘Self’ and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions

Original article can be found at: http://www.igi-global.com/articles/details.asp?ID=35052 Copyright IGI. Posted by permission of the publisher.This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modeling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottomup approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.Peer reviewe

Emotional characters for automatic plot creation

The Virtual Storyteller is a multi-agent framework for automatic story generation. In this paper we describe how plots emerge from the actions of semi-autonomous character agents, focusing on the influence of the characters’ emotions on plot development

The Challenge of Believability in Video Games: Definitions, Agents Models and Imitation Learning

In this paper, we address the problem of creating believable agents (virtual characters) in video games. We consider only one meaning of believability, ``giving the feeling of being controlled by a player'', and outline the problem of its evaluation. We present several models for agents in games which can produce believable behaviours, both from industry and research. For high level of believability, learning and especially imitation learning seems to be the way to go. We make a quick overview of different approaches to make video games' agents learn from players. To conclude we propose a two-step method to develop new models for believable agents. First we must find the criteria for believability for our application and define an evaluation method. Then the model and the learning algorithm can be designed

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

A motion system for social and animated robots

This paper presents an innovative motion system that is used to control the motions and animations of a social robot. The social robot Probo is used to study Human-Robot Interactions (HRI), with a special focus on Robot Assisted Therapy (RAT). When used for therapy it is important that a social robot is able to create an "illusion of life" so as to become a believable character that can communicate with humans. The design of the motion system in this paper is based on insights from the animation industry. It combines operator-controlled animations with low-level autonomous reactions such as attention and emotional state. The motion system has a Combination Engine, which combines motion commands that are triggered by a human operator with motions that originate from different units of the cognitive control architecture of the robot. This results in an interactive robot that seems alive and has a certain degree of "likeability". The Godspeed Questionnaire Series is used to evaluate the animacy and likeability of the robot in China, Romania and Belgium

The Influence of Culture on ABMP Negotiation Parameters

Negotiations are known to proceed differently across cultures. A realistic agent model of international negotiations has to take cultural differences into account. This paper presents an agent-based model that tackles this challenge. The context is a trade game where commodities with a hidden quality attribute are exchanged. The negotiation model uses the ABMP negotiation architecture. It applies a utility function that includes market value, quality preference, and risk attitude. The indices of the five dimensions of Hofstede’s model of national cultures are used, in combination with agent’s group membership and societal status, to differentiate negotiation behavior by adaptation of weight factors in the utility function and ABMP parameters. The paper presents test runs with synthetic cultures and a set of actual national cultures. The present version of the model helps to understand behaviors in international trade networks. It proves that Hofstede’s dimensions can be used to generate culturally differentiated agent