Designing friends

Embodied Conversational Agents are virtual humans that can interact with humans using verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. In most cases, they have been designed for short interactions. This paper asks the question how one would start to design synthetic characters that can become your friends. We look at insights from social psychology and propose a methodology for designing friends

Orientações de design para Agentes Pedagógicos Animados

A área de agentes animados pedagógicos está relacionada ao desenvolvimento de aplicações que visam melhorar o processo de interação humano-computador (por humanos queremos dizer estudantes e professores) utilizando software de agentes representados por caracte- res ou figuras humanas. A fim de ajudar os pesquisado- res a projetar agentes pedagógicos que possam melhorar a usabilidade do agente humano, este trabalho vai discutir as diretrizes básicas para o design de Agentes Animados Pedagógicos, com base nos conceitos fornecidos pela In- formática na Educação, Inteligência Artificial e Interação Humano-Computador

Designing a realistic peer-like embodied conversational agent for supporting children\textquotesingle s storytelling

Advances in artificial intelligence have facilitated the use of large language models (LLMs) and AI-generated synthetic media in education, which may inspire HCI researchers to develop technologies, in particular, embodied conversational agents (ECAs) to simulate the kind of scaffolding children might receive from a human partner. In this paper, we will propose a design prototype of a peer-like ECA named STARie that integrates multiple AI models - GPT-3, Speech Synthesis (Real-time Voice Cloning), VOCA (Voice Operated Character Animation), and FLAME (Faces Learned with an Articulated Model and Expressions) that aims to support narrative production in collaborative storytelling, specifically for children aged 4-8. However, designing a child-centered ECA raises concerns about age appropriateness, children\textquotesingle s privacy, gender choices of ECAs, and the uncanny valley effect. Thus, this paper will also discuss considerations and ethical concerns that must be taken into account when designing such an ECA. This proposal offers insights into the potential use of AI-generated synthetic media in child-centered AI design and how peer-like AI embodiment may support children\textquotesingle s storytelling.Comment: 6 pages with 2 figures. The paper has been peer-reviewed and presented at the "CHI 2023 Workshop on Child-centred AI Design: Definition, Operation and Considerations, April 23, 2023, Hamburg, German

Can You Hear What I See? Nonverbal Communication and the Changing Face of TML

Business training and education are changing. Organizations have experienced dramatic changes in their structure, competitive environment, and the demographics and demands of their employees. As a result, organizations are seeking new and innovative ways to train employees. At the same time the evolution of technology mediated learning tools (TML) has resulted in flexible, interactive, engaging, learning technology tools that promote experiential learning, analytical thinking and problem solving. Simulation based technology mediated learning (SimTML) tools are gaining popularity in practice. SimTML facilitates lifelike environments that utilize animated pedagogical agents (APAs) which employ nonverbal communication traits in their interaction with the user. The effect is a lifelike, face-to-face interaction, between the user and the APA. The result is a flexible, interactive, engaging, TML tool that promotes experiential learning, analytical thinking and problem solving. This paper explores current SimTML technology, how we interact with learning technology, and provides selection and evaluation principles for organizations to use when evaluating SimTML tools for their own training programs

Desktop 3-D Interactive Drama – Applying Design Principles from the Performance Arts.

Increasing emotional engagement in 3-D interactive environments is a hard, but important problem. It is important for its potential utility in increasing motivation, involvement, and engagement. These constructs are not only useful for entertainment applications, but also impact training and edutainment applications due to the impact of emotions on learning (Ulate, 2002; Wolfe, 2001). Many researchers have explored several techniques, including enhancing the story content to stimulate emotional engagement, developing new algorithms for dynamically creating stunning visual effects, and enhancing 3-D sound. Theatre and film have integrated many techniques that increase engagement, attention, and emotional involvement. In this paper, I describe a set of new design techniques integrated in an architecture that uses theatric and cinematic theories, specifically acting and screenwriting methods, to stimulate and improve emotional engagement in 3-D interactive narratives. In this paper, I discuss two research directions: (1) defining an interaction model for 3-D interactive narrative based on screenwriting theories, and (2) developing an actor-based agent architecture to simulate believable actions within an interactive narrative. The resulting architecture was implemented and tested within Mirage, an interactive story based on the Greek Tragedy Electra. Based on the critiques from several participants, I deduce that the resulting architecture presents significantly encouraging design techniques that can potentially increase emotional involvement and dramatic content of an interactive desktop 3D VR experience. The system and approach presented in this paper demonstrates an important new direction that adds to the set of techniques currently used and expand the design methodologies to include methods from disciplines, such as performance arts, theatre, and film

Real time multimodal interaction with animated virtual human

This paper describes the design and implementation of a real time animation framework in which animated virtual human is capable of performing multimodal interactions with human user. The animation system consists of several functional components, namely perception, behaviours generation, and motion generation. The virtual human agent in the system has a complex underlying geometry structure with multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs). It relies on a virtual perception system to capture information from its environment and respond to human user's commands by a combination of non-verbal behaviours including co-verbal gestures, posture, body motions and simple utterances. A language processing module is incorporated to interpret user's command. In particular, an efficient motion generation method has been developed to combines both motion captured data and parameterized actions generated in real time to produce variations in agent's behaviours depending on its momentary emotional states

Darwin’s antithesis revisited – a zoosemiotic perspective on expressing emotions in animals and animal cartoon characters

In the animation and design of cartoon characters, animators have often turned to the study of biological theories and observation of human actors and animals to capture lifelike movements and emotions more successfully. Charles Darwin’s principle of antithesis, as one of the principles he considered to be responsible for the expression of emotions in animals, would seem to be of distinctive importance in the development of animation. By revisiting Darwin’s original idea in the context of the principles of animation formulated by Thomas and Johnston, we are able to assess its application and relevance in the expressions of emotions in cartoon animal characters. The article concentrates on the emotive function of animal social communication as outlined in zoosemiotics, while taking into account that the expressions of animal characters are directed at the viewer. The principle of antithesis, as a descriptive tool, aids us in considering the diversity of modalities used simultaneously in affective communication, and serves to explicate human interpretations of the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic projections onto the behaviour of cartoon animal characters. This paper offers insight into the potential expansion and re-evaluation of unattested principles in animation, which can be utilized by animators in the creation of more dynamic and expressive animated characters