The Impact of Communication on a Human-Agent Shared Mental Model and Team Performance (Extended Abstract)

ABSTRACT There is a growing interest in the use of heterogeneous teams comprised of humans and Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs). Human teamwork studies have provided cumulative knowledge about team features and performance; however, transfer of this knowledge to human-IVA teams is challenging. Novelly, this paper investigates the impact of multiple communication channels on the development and maintenance of a Shared Mental Model (SMM) between humans and IVAs. The results from two studies involving a collaborative activity show a significant positive relationship between the IVA's verbal and non-verbal communication and the development of a SMM related to taskwork and teamwork as perceived by the human teammate. Moreover, the results indicate that a SMM tends to improve overall team performance

Evaluating the impact of the human-agent teamwork communication model (HAT-CoM) on the development of a shared mental model

It is well known that the development of a Shared Mental Model (SMM) leads to better teamwork performance. Communication of shared knowledge is considered a crucial factor in successful teamwork. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of applying a proposed Human-Agent Teamwork Communication Model, namely HAT-CoM, on the development of SMM between human and agent teammates. Another aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of an implausible or unreasonable request on the SMM. The results show that HAT-CoM is effective in assisting the human and agent teammates to develop SMM. In addition, the results show that an implausible request breaks the developed SMM.8 page(s