Agents, Believability and Embodiment in Advanced Learning Environments

On the World Wide Web we see a growing number of general HCI interfaces, interfaces to educational or entertainment systems, interfaces to professional environments, etc., where an animated face, a cartoon character or a human-like virtual agent has the task to assist the user, to engage the user into a conversation or to educate the user. What can be said say about the effects a human-like agent has on a student's performance? We discuss agents, their intelligence, embodiment and interaction modalities. In particular, we introduce viewpoints and questions about roles embodied agents can play in educational environment

ANGELICA : choice of output modality in an embodied agent

The ANGELICA project addresses the problem of modality choice in information presentation by embodied, humanlike agents. The output modalities available to such agents include both language and various nonverbal signals such as pointing and gesturing. For each piece of information to be presented by the agent it must be decided whether it should be expressed using language, a nonverbal signal, or both. In the ANGELICA project a model of the different factors influencing this choice will be developed and integrated in a natural language generation system. The application domain is the presentation of route descriptions by an embodied agent in a 3D environment. Evaluation and testing form an integral part of the project. In particular, we will investigate the effect of different modality choices on the effectiveness and naturalness of the generated presentations and on the user's perception of the agent's personality

Generating socially appropriate tutorial dialog

Analysis of student-tutor coaching dialogs suggest that good human tutors attend to and attempt to influence the motivational state of learners. Moreover, they are sensitive to the social face of the learner, and seek to mitigate the potential face threat of their comments. This paper describes a dialog generator for pedagogical agents that takes motivation and face threat factors into account. This enables the agent to interact with learners in a socially appropriate fashion, and foster intrinsic motivation on the part of the learner, which in turn may lead to more positive learner affective states

Effects Of Pedagogical Agents' Instructional Roles On Learners With Different Cognitive Styles In Terms Of Achievement And Motivation

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti kesan peranan instruksi agen pedagogi dalam suasana pembelajaran multimedia berasaskan agen pedagogi terhadap pelajar dari pelbagai gaya kognitif dari segi pencapaian dan motivasi. This study investigated the effects of pedagogical agents' instructional roles m an interactive agent-based multimedia learning environment on learners with different cognitive styles in terms of achievement and motivation.ion

Designing Animated Pedagogical Agent (APA) To Scaffold Student Learning In Online Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Environment

This paper describes on the idea in integrating APA as an alternative approach as scaffolding in PBL. APA will be operated as a virtual tutor and guide learners through the learning process in PBL environment