Training Effects of Adaptive Emotive Responses From Animated Agents in Simulated Environments

Humans are distinct from machines in their capacity to emote, stimulate, and express emotions. Because emotions play such an important role in human interactions, human-like agents used in pedagogical roles for simulation-based training should properly reflect emotions. Currently, research concerning the development of this type of agent focuses on basic agent interface characteristics, as well as character building qualities. However, human-like agents should provide emotion-like qualities that are clearly expressed, properly synchronized, and that simulate complex, real-time interactions through adaptive emotion systems. The research conducted for this dissertation was a quantitative investigation using 3 (within) x 2 (between) x 3 (within) factorial design. A total of 56 paid participants consented to complete the study. Independent variables included emotion intensity (i.e., low, moderate, and high emotion), levels of expertise (novice participant versus experienced participant), and number of trials. Dependent measures included visual attention, emotional response towards the animated agents, simulation performance score, and learners\u27 perception of the pedagogical agent persona while participants interacted with a pain assessment and management simulation. While no relationships were indicated between the levels of emotion intensity portrayed by the animated agents and the participants\u27 visual attention, emotional response towards the animated agent, and simulation performance score, there were significant relationships between the level of expertise of the participant and the visual attention, emotional responses, and performance outcomes. The results indicated that nursing students had higher visual attention during their interaction with the animated agents. Additionally, nursing students expressed more neutral facial expression whereas experienced nurses expressed more emotional facial expressions towards the animated agents. The results of the simulation performance scores indicated that nursing students obtained higher performance scores in the pain assessment and management task than experienced nurses. Both groups of participants had a positive perception of the animated agents persona

Shaping Robot Gestures to Shape Users' Perception: the Effect of Amplitude and Speed on Godspeed Ratings

This work analyses the relationship between the way robots gesture and the way those gestures are perceived by human users. In particular, this work shows how modifying the amplitude and speed of a gesture affect the Godspeed scores given to those gestures, by means of an experiment involving 45 stimuli and 30 observers. The results suggest that shaping gestures aimed at manifesting the inner state of the robot (e.g., cheering or showing disappointment) tends to change the perception of Animacy (the dimension that accounts for how driven by endogenous factors the robot is perceived to be), while shaping gestures aimed at achieving an interaction effect (e.g., engaging and disengaging) tends to change the perception of Anthropomorphism, Likeability and Perceived Safety (the dimensions that account for the social aspects of the perception)

A Comprehensive Review of Data-Driven Co-Speech Gesture Generation

Gestures that accompany speech are an essential part of natural and efficient embodied human communication. The automatic generation of such co-speech gestures is a long-standing problem in computer animation and is considered an enabling technology in film, games, virtual social spaces, and for interaction with social robots. The problem is made challenging by the idiosyncratic and non-periodic nature of human co-speech gesture motion, and by the great diversity of communicative functions that gestures encompass. Gesture generation has seen surging interest recently, owing to the emergence of more and larger datasets of human gesture motion, combined with strides in deep-learning-based generative models, that benefit from the growing availability of data. This review article summarizes co-speech gesture generation research, with a particular focus on deep generative models. First, we articulate the theory describing human gesticulation and how it complements speech. Next, we briefly discuss rule-based and classical statistical gesture synthesis, before delving into deep learning approaches. We employ the choice of input modalities as an organizing principle, examining systems that generate gestures from audio, text, and non-linguistic input. We also chronicle the evolution of the related training data sets in terms of size, diversity, motion quality, and collection method. Finally, we identify key research challenges in gesture generation, including data availability and quality; producing human-like motion; grounding the gesture in the co-occurring speech in interaction with other speakers, and in the environment; performing gesture evaluation; and integration of gesture synthesis into applications. We highlight recent approaches to tackling the various key challenges, as well as the limitations of these approaches, and point toward areas of future development.Comment: Accepted for EUROGRAPHICS 202

Redefining the anthropomorphic animal in animation

The use of anthropomorphic animal characters is pervasive in animation, but there has been little examination of how and why these are created, and how a viewing audience understands them. This Practice-based PhD examines how a re-defining of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representation might bring a new impetus to the use of animal imagery within contemporary animation practice. An initial stage of research was to define the term anthropomorphism both as a visual language within animation practice and in the wider contexts of scientific and philosophical discourse. Social and psychological aspects are discussed, recognising this form of hybrid representation throughout the development of human culture. Links with Human Animal Studies disciplines raised the question of relating anthropomorphism to negative aspects of anthropocentrism and this led to a second stage of the research that explores ways of working with anthropomorphism that do not promote an anthropocentric bias. This is firstly achieved through the devising of a new theoretical approach to character analysis that is based on the recognition of perceptual aesthetic and sensual animal qualities in human-led , animal-led and design-led anthropomorphic characters, rather than a reliance on conceptual symbolic referencing of human experiences, goals, and narratives. Moving into the practice and influence from historical animation work provides impetus for a move away from character and narrative based work. Experimental animation techniques are used to create rhythms and patterns of abstracted animal and human imagery. This new work is based on contemporary ecological ideas that discuss relationships between humans and animals as interconnected species, thus providing a second way of lessening of anthropocentric bias in the subject matter. Having a starting point of aesthetic and sensual responses to actual experiences with animals is an important factor and live action film is re-animated to create digitally manipulated rhythms of colour, texture, movement and sound. The practical research outcomes are animation samples that evidence the coming together of experimental digital techniques and contemporary ecological subject matter. An action research model was devised for the research to enable the integration of theory and practice, and reflection on theory and practice to have an important influence on the practical outcomes. The approach taken was dependent on experience as a creative practitioner and as a teacher helping others to develop a sustainable creative practice, in allowing an open and intuitive discovery of ideas from both theoretical and practical explorations to create a flow through the research. The combination of theoretical and practical research undertaken provides an impetus towards the creation of future animation work using an anthropomorphic visual language redefined as zooanthropomorphic animation . The submission includes outcomes of a written thesis and links to practical animation work

The design and engineering of variable character morphology

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, September 2001."August 2001."Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-82).This thesis explores the technical challenges and the creative possibilities afforded by a computational system that allows behavioral control over the appearance of a character's morphology. Working within the framework of the Synthetic Character's behavior architecture, a system has been implemented that allows a character's internal state to drive changes in its morphology. The system allows for real-time, multi-target blending between body geometries, skeletons, and animations. The results reflect qualitative changes in the character's appearance and state. Through the thesis character sketches are used to demonstrate the potential of this integrated approach to behavior and character morphology.Scott Michael Eaton.S.M

Development of the huggable social robot Probo: on the conceptual design and software architecture

This dissertation presents the development of a huggable social robot named Probo. Probo embodies a stuffed imaginary animal, providing a soft touch and a huggable appearance. Probo's purpose is to serve as a multidisciplinary research platform for human-robot interaction focused on children. In terms of a social robot, Probo is classified as a social interface supporting non-verbal communication. Probo's social skills are thereby limited to a reactive level. To close the gap with higher levels of interaction, an innovative system for shared control with a human operator is introduced. The software architecture de nes a modular structure to incorporate all systems into a single control center. This control center is accompanied with a 3D virtual model of Probo, simulating all motions of the robot and providing a visual feedback to the operator. Additionally, the model allows us to advance on user-testing and evaluation of newly designed systems. The robot reacts on basic input stimuli that it perceives during interaction. The input stimuli, that can be referred to as low-level perceptions, are derived from vision analysis, audio analysis, touch analysis and object identification. The stimuli will influence the attention and homeostatic system, used to de ne the robot's point of attention, current emotional state and corresponding facial expression. The recognition of these facial expressions has been evaluated in various user-studies. To evaluate the collaboration of the software components, a social interactive game for children, Probogotchi, has been developed. To facilitate interaction with children, Probo has an identity and corresponding history. Safety is ensured through Probo's soft embodiment and intrinsic safe actuation systems. To convey the illusion of life in a robotic creature, tools for the creation and management of motion sequences are put into the hands of the operator. All motions generated from operator triggered systems are combined with the motions originating from the autonomous reactive systems. The resulting motion is subsequently smoothened and transmitted to the actuation systems. With future applications to come, Probo is an ideal platform to create a friendly companion for hospitalised children

Performance, perception, and choice of animated pedagogical agent

This study was designed to investigate learning with animated pedagogical agents (APAs) in the chemistry domain. Of interest was whether learners achieved more when paired with an APA, the learner\u27s perception of the APA, and whether the ability to choose an APA affected learner performance and perception; An APA (Animated Pedagogical Agent) is a computerized character that is designed to facilitate learning. The ability of the student to choose which APA to study with was integral to this study, so that the effects of student choice on performance and perception of the APA could be investigated. Further, the student\u27s view of the APA in general was analyzed from open-ended comments submitted by the students; The APAs were carefully constructed according to cognitive load theory (CLT), the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) and social agency theory. Presentation of the APA, worked examples and self-explanation prompts for weekly chemistry quizzes were built in accordance with these theories. What is surprising is that the students did not react to the APAs as expected; The students should have performed better when studying with an APA, and should have enjoyed studying with their APA. However, the results of this study did not reveal this; The interesting results of this study do not lie with differences sought between the groups. The condition, whether no APA, assigned APA or self-selected APA, did not seem to make a significant difference in this study. What made a difference was the APA itself, whether selected or assigned, and the comments of the students; One possible interpretation may be that there is an initial novelty effect when students study with an APA, and that this benefit is lost over time such as in this multiple measures study. Further, the APA may be viewed as a kind of decoration, since the appearance of the APA led to significant differences in perception of the APA. Finally, the ability to customize the APA may be linked to student perception of the APA