A Formal Architecture of Shared Mental Models for Computational Improvisational Agents

This paper proposes a formal approach of constructing shared mental models between computational improvisational agents (improv agents) and human interactors based on our socio-cognitive studies of human improvisers. Creating shared mental models helps improv agents co-create stories with each other and interactors in real-time interactive narrative experiences. The approach described here allows flexible modeling of non-Boolean (i.e. fuzzy) knowledge about scene and background concepts through the use of fuzzy rules and confidence factors in order to allow reasoning under uncertainty. It also allows improv agents to infer new knowledge about a scene from existing knowledge, recognize when new knowledge may be divergent from the other actor’s mental model, and attempt to resolve this divergence to reach cognitive consensus despite the absence of explicit goals in the story environment

Reaching Cognitive Consensus with Improvisational Agents

A common approach to interactive narrative involves imbuing the computer with all of the potential story pre- authored story experiences (e.g. as beats, plot points, planning operators, etc.). This has resulted in an accepted paradigm where stories are not created by or with the user; rather, the user is given piecemeal access to the story from the gatekeeper of story knowledge: the computer (e.g. as an AI drama manager). This article describes a formal process that provides for the equal co-creation of story-rich experiences, where neither the user nor computer is in a privileged position in an interactive narrative. It describes a new formal approach that acts as a first step for the realtime co-creation of narrative in games that rely on the negotiated shared mental model between a human actor and an AI improv agent

Dynamic theme-based narrative systems

The advent of videogames, and the new forms of expressions they offered, sprouted the possibility of presenting narratives in ways that could capitalize on unique qualities of the media, most notably the agency found in their interactive nature. In spite of many people in the game studies’ field interested in how far said novelty could bring narrative experiences, most approached the creation of narrative systems from a structural approach (especially the classical Aristotelian one), and concurrently, with a bottom-up (characters defining a world) or top-down (world defining characters) perspective. While those more mainstream takes have been greatly progressing what interactive digital narrative can be, this research intended to take a bit of a detour, proposing a functionally similar system that emphasized thematic coherence and responsiveness above all else. Once the theoretical formulation was done, taking into consideration previously similar or tangential systems, a prototype would be developed to make a first step towards validating the proposal, and contribute to building a better understanding of the field’s possibilities

Back-Leading Through Character Status In Interactive Storytelling

A key challenge in computer-based interactive narrative is the conflict between user agency and authorial control of the story quality. Valuable lessons can be learned from improvisational and especially interactive theatre, where various narrative and interactive strategies have been developed to engage users in the process of co-creating the story. In this paper, we focus on the use of character status and status shifts. Specifically, we present and illustrate a computational model of status shifts based on the cognitive semantics theory of force dynamics. © 2011 Springer-Verlag