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

Generation of multi-modal dialogue for a net environment

In this paper an architecture and special purpose markup language for simulated affective face-to-face communication is presented. In systems based on this architecture, users will be able to watch embodied conversational agents interact with each other in virtual locations on the internet. The markup language, or Rich Representation Language (RRL), has been designed to provide an integrated representation of speech, gesture, posture and facial animation

Museum Experience Design: A Modern Storytelling Methodology

In this paper we propose a new direction for design, in the context of the theme “Next Digital Technologies in Arts and Culture”, by employing modern methods based on Interaction Design, Interactive Storytelling and Artificial Intelligence. Focusing on Cultural Heritage, we propose a new paradigm for Museum Experience Design, facilitating on the one hand traditional visual and multimedia communication and, on the other, a new type of interaction with artefacts, in the form of a Storytelling Experience. Museums are increasingly being transformed into hybrid spaces, where virtual (digital) information coexists with tangible artefacts. In this context, “Next Digital Technologies” play a new role, providing methods to increase cultural accessibility and enhance experience. Not only is the goal to convey stories hidden inside artefacts, as well as items or objects connected to them, but it is also to pave the way for the creation of new ones through an interactive museum experience that continues after the museum visit ends. Social sharing, in particular, can greatly increase the value of dissemination

A User-Centric Adaptive Story Architecture – Borrowing from Acting Theories.

Interactive virtual environments are becoming increasingly popular for their utility in education, virtual training, and entertainment. These applications often rely on a scenario that is revealed to the user as he/she interacts with synthetic objects and characters that inhabit virtual worlds. Current interactive narrative architectures used in the interactive entertainment industry often use decision trees, which are hard to author and modify. Some interactive entertainment productions are starting to use more generative techniques, such as plan-based or goal-based narrative. In this paper, I present an interactive narrative architecture that extends current research in interactive narrative by integrating a user modeling and user behavior analysis technique, which I argue facilities a more engaging and fulfilling experience. I have implemented the architecture within an interactive story called Mirage. The architecture resulted from an iterative design and development process involving a team that included film and theatre professionals. During this design and development process, I have experimented and evaluated different narrative techniques, which resulted in the proposed architecture

Intelligent Pedagogical Agents in Immersive Virtual Learning Environments: A Review

The concept of Intelligent Pedagogical Agents (IPA) has been an important research topic for a long time. IPA is supported by multi-agent systems research derived from AI. IPA provides personalized instruction, increase learner motivation, and act pedagogically on behalf or with the learner. On the other hand, virtual environments add value to the education process by giving new educational possibilities and computational-richness support. Combining both IPA and Virtual environments can make a promising approach for effective computer-aided learning. This paper provides a review on IPA and related topics focusing on a general overview of the topic, gives a detailed review in the application domain of virtual learning environments, and outlines a proposal for a flexible conceptual approach for the flexible application in different learning settings

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