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

Affective Medicine: a review of Affective Computing efforts in Medical Informatics

Background: Affective computing (AC) is concerned with emotional interactions performed with and through computers. It is defined as “computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions”. AC enables investigation and understanding of the relation between human emotions and health as well as application of assistive and useful technologies in the medical domain. Objectives: 1) To review the general state of the art in AC and its applications in medicine, and 2) to establish synergies between the research communities of AC and medical informatics. Methods: Aspects related to the human affective state as a determinant of the human health are discussed, coupled with an illustration of significant AC research and related literature output. Moreover, affective communication channels are described and their range of application fields is explored through illustrative examples. Results: The presented conferences, European research projects and research publications illustrate the recent increase of interest in the AC area by the medical community. Tele-home healthcare, AmI, ubiquitous monitoring, e-learning and virtual communities with emotionally expressive characters for elderly or impaired people are few areas where the potential of AC has been realized and applications have emerged. Conclusions: A number of gaps can potentially be overcome through the synergy of AC and medical informatics. The application of AC technologies parallels the advancement of the existing state of the art and the introduction of new methods. The amount of work and projects reviewed in this paper witness an ambitious and optimistic synergetic future of the affective medicine field

World polity: anatomy of and arguments for regional and global integration

This article is inspired by taking sort of a medical view on the international political world2. A medical view here means that first we need to understand the anatomy of the organism that we observe, i.e. the world. Secondly, we need to make some diagnoses and prognoses about possible threats to the functioning of this organism as well as how to restore health. In Political Science terms this means identifying threats to security, peace, survival and wellbeing of states, nations, and individuals, as well as the whole, and to identify possible political solutions to these threats. The first part of this article will present the history of global integration and why it is necessary to prevent war and to facilitate peace at the example of Europe. Europe is here regarded a greenhouse for global integration. This part describes the attempts at integration before the major wars in Europe in the last centuries, the reasons for these wars as the failures or lack of integration, and the way it was overcome. The second part of this article will present an ideal type global political anatomy. This will be illustrated with graphics, which are thought to make the global political system better understood by visualising key aspects of it. The third part of this paper will discuss the nature of reality, which is important to understand conflicts in today’s world, as ‘virtual’, material, social and cultural. It will present a challenge to Alexander Wendt’s recent idea of reality as a hologram and discuss how civilizational conflicts, as described by Samuel Huntington, can possibly be resolved by creating a global demos (polity) by establishing a global parliament. As the basis for the latter argument, finally, this paper will present and analyse the results from the survey on global citizenship. Global demos here refer to the idea of a global polity, or identification of the global population with the global, or to say it alternatively: as global citizens. It is argued that, if we would have a global demos, this would facilitate global integration, which is necessary for peace. For example, further global integration towards a world state with a world parliament, is thought to be only possible and sensible if there is a reasonable global demos to build this entity on.For this reason, this article presents results from a survey run at the University of Hull in 2016 intended to measure global citizenship

Towards Learning ‘Self’ and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions

Original article can be found at: http://www.igi-global.com/articles/details.asp?ID=35052 Copyright IGI. Posted by permission of the publisher.This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modeling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottomup approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.Peer reviewe

Drivers’ behaviour modelling for virtual worlds

In this paper we present a study that looks at modelling drivers’ behaviour with a view to contribute to the problem of road rage. The approach we adopt is based on agent technology, particularly multi-agent systems. Each driver is represented by a software agent. A virtual environment is used to simulate drivers’ behaviour, thus enabling us to observe the conditions leading to road rage. The simulated model is then used to suggest possible ways of alleviating this societal problem. Our agents are equipped with an emotional module which will make their behaviours more human-like. For this, we propose a computational emotion model based on the OCC model and probabilistic cognitive maps. The key influencing factors that are included in the model are personality, emotions and some social/personal attributes

Social and Cultural Dimensions of Market Expansion

We have identified three dimensions of market expansion: the growth of market oriented production and trade, internal and external market integration and the creation of virtual markets. These three processes can occur side by side and are connected with social and cultural change.markets culture market expansion

Applying marketing’s new dominant logic for interpreting customer experiences with brands

The concept of customer experience is evolving to an imperative area of study within the marketing discipline. Despite its importance and the positive attention this concept is receiving in the literature, the explanation of customer experiences remains vague and a thorough theoretical foundation is lacking. This paper addresses the gap in the literature and to facilitate a brand-management understanding of the concept of customer experience and its antecedents and consequences. The paper examines the impact of customer experience on brand loyalty via a comprehensive review of existing literature on the concept of customer experience and service brand literatures. Additionally, twelve propositions describe and explain the antecedents of customer experience and impacts upon brand loyalty within a service-centered marketing logic. This paper contributes a novel customer-brand experience perspective and conceptual tools relevant for further theory development and for effectively managing customer-brand relationships

Linking experience realms and experiential service brand loyalty: Determinants and outcomes for future operationalization

The concept of ‗Customer Experience‘ has evolved as an imperative area of study within the marketing discipline. Despite its importance and the positive attention this concept received during the last few years, the explanation of customer experiences have remained vague and lack a thorough theoretical foundation. This paper aims to address the gap in the literature and to facilitate better understanding of the concept of customer experience and its antecedents and consequences from the consumer perspective. The paper examines the impact of customer experience on brand loyalty via a comprehensive review of existing literature on the concept of customer experience and service brand literatures. Additionally, twelve hypotheses, which describe and explain the antecedents of customer experience and impacts upon brand loyalty within the service sector, are presented. The outcome of this paper adds novel perspective to the growing body of brand literature, particularly service brand and suggests directions for future research

MANAGING THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES

Even if since ancient times wealth and power have been associated with having physical resources, and the traditional production factors were predominantly physical, knowledge revolution is the shift from physical-based economy to predominantly knowledge-based economy. Experts have lately noticed the increase of economic importance of technologies, information, economic processes, human capital, the organisation’s abilities and skills, each of these factors having a significant importance to the knowledge management. It is expected that future wealth and power shall mainly be derived from intangible intellectual resources, from the knowledge capital. This is why we considered it of absolute current interest to approach this theme and especially on managing staff`s challenges.leader, knowledge-based economy, virtual team