Incorporating Influence Tactics into a Decision Aid: Tested via a Dictator Game

The purpose of this study was to examine how proactive influence tactics could be incorporated into decision aids in order to change human perceptions and decisions. This study serves as a foundation for future research that could incorporate such tactics into automated agents. It is posited that influence and impression management techniques may have an effect in human-agent interactions and this study examines if framing a decision aid around the tactic of inspirational appeal can change human behavior. The goal was to determine if appealing to “fairness” in simple paper-based decision aids could alter decisions. A game-theoretic dictator game is used to test the effect and the study lends modest support to the fact that altering messages and frames can change behavior. Specifically, when a decision was framed as a matter of “fairness”, participants were more likely to act in their teammate’s interest instead of their own

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www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhcs Using human physiology to evaluate subtle expressivity of a virtual quizmaster in a mathematical game

Dancing with Physio: A Mobile Game with Physiologically Aware Virtual Humans

This study presents an evaluation of a mobile game with physiologically aware virtual humans as an approach to modulate the participant's affective and physiological state. We developed a mobile version of a virtual reality scenario where the participants were able to interact with virtual human characters through their psychophysiological activity. Music was played in the background of the scenario and, depending on the experimental condition, the virtual humans were initially either barely dancing or dancing very euphorically. The task of the participants was to encourage the apathetic virtual humans to dance or to calm down the frenetically dancing characters, through the modulation of their own mood and physiological activity. Results from our study show that by using this mobile game with the physiologically aware and affective virtual humans the participants were able to emotionally arouse themselves in the Activation condition and were able to relax themselves in the Relaxation condition, during the same session with only a brief break between conditions. The self-reported affective data was also corroborated by the physiological data (heart rate, respiration and skin conductance) which significantly differed between the Activation and Relaxation conditions

Virtual humans and Photorealism: The effect of photorealism of interactive virtual humans in clinical virtual environment on affective responses

The ability of realistic vs stylized representations of virtual characters to elicit emotions in users has been an open question for researchers and artists alike. We designed and performed a between subjects experiment using a medical virtual reality simulation to study the differences in the emotions aroused in participants while interacting with realistic and stylized virtual characters. The experiment included three conditions each of which presented a different representation of the virtual character namely; photo-realistic, non-photorealistic cartoon-shaded and non-photorealistic charcoal-sketch. The simulation used for the experiment, called the Rapid Response Training System was developed to train nurses to identify symptoms of rapid deterioration in patients. The emotional impact of interacting with the simulation on the participants was measured via both subjective and objective metrics. Quantitative objective measures were gathered using skin Electrodermal Activity (EDA) sensors, and quantitative subjective measures included Differential Emotion Survey (DES IV), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and the co-presence or social presence questionnaire. The emotional state of the participants was analyzed across four distinct time steps during which the medical condition of the virtual patient deteriorated, and was contrasted to a baseline affective state. The data from the EDA sensors indicated that the mean level of arousal was highest in the charcoal-sketch condition, lowest in the realistic condition, with responses in the cartoon-shaded condition was in the middle. Mean arousal responses also seemed to be consistent in both the cartoon-shaded and charcoal-sketch conditions across all time steps, while the mean arousal response of participants in the realistic condition showed a significant drop from time step 1 through time step 2, corresponding to the deterioration of the virtual patient. Mean scores of participants in the DES survey seems to suggest that participants in the realistic condition elicited a higher emotional response than participants in both non-realistic conditions. Within the non-realistic conditions, participants in the cartoon-shaded condition seemed to elicit a higher emotional response than those in the charcoal-sketch condition