A high-level architecture for believable social agents

The creation of virtual humans capable of behaving and interacting realistically with each other requires the development of autonomous believable social agents. Standard goal-oriented approaches are not well suited to it because they don't take into account important characteristics identified by the social sciences. This paper tackles the issue of a general social reasoning mechanism, discussing its basic functional requirements using a sociological perspective, and proposing a high-level architecture based on Roles, Norms, Values and Type

Nonverbal communication interface for collaborative virtual environments

Nonverbal communication is an important aspect of real-life face-to-face interaction and one of the most efficient ways to convey emotions, therefore users should be provided the means to replicate it in the virtual world. Because articulated embodiments are well suited to provide body communication in virtual environments, this paper first reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages of complex embodiments. After a brief introduction to nonverbal communication theories, we present our solution, taking into account the practical limitations of input devices and social science aspects. We introduce our sample of actions and implementation using our VLNET (Virtual Life Network) networked virtual environment and discuss the results of an informal evaluation experimen

Non-Verbal Communication Forms in Multi-player Game Session

The lack of intuitive and non-intrusive non-verbal cues is one of the distinctive features that separate computer-mediated communication settings from face-to-face encounters. The analysis of the non-verbal communication forms in a multi-player game session indicates that the participants of collaborative virtual environment can effectively use various forms of non-verbal communication to reduce the communication difficulties. A creative combination of various communication channels makes it possible to enhance the interaction. The limitations of computer mediation can be reduced by enabling more flexible and natural interaction. Although the naturalness and of face-to-face communication is hard to achieve, the virtual environments provide additional ways to enhance the weak areas of interaction

Improving Communication in 3D Virtual Environments by Means of Task Delegation in Agents

User-to-User Communication within Internet-based 3D Virtual Environments is usually difficult mainly due to the trade-off between the capability and the complexity of the interface. In this paper we make a proposal for interface management based on the delegation of some communication tasks on Intelligent and Emotional Agents