Agents
with
Character
Agents with Character
Evaluation of Empathic Agents in Digital Dossiers
Johan F. Hoorn
Anton Eliëns
VU Amsterdam
Zhisheng Huang
Henriette C. van Vugt
Elly A. Konijn
Communication Science
Artificial Intelligence
Information Management & Software Engineering
Cees T. Visser
structure
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introduction
user engagement with empathic agents
PEFiC in digital dossiers
evaluation scenarios
development of the MetaMorph box
interactive PEFiC powered by DLP/STEP
some issues and pitfalls
conclusions
carry back home message
• an empirically tested model of engaging fiction
characters (PEFiC)
• test scenarios in the real-life application domain of
digital dossiers
• DLP+X3D/STEP technology to support virtual
environments and characters
all the ingredients needed to conduct proper agent research
user engagement with empathic agents
face-to-face: task relevant information
facilitation, motivation
empathy?
human experience with fictional characters
appreciation :: involvement <> distance
embodied agents as fictional characters
PEFiC
phase 1 -- encoding
 ethics -- good vs. bad
 aesthetics -- beauty vs ugliness
 epistemics -- realistic vs. unrealistic
phase 2 -- comparison
 establishing personal relevance, mutual similarity
and valence towards fictional character
phase 3 -- response
 involvement vs distance -- tendency to approach or
avoid
PEFiC in digital dossiers
evaluation scenarios
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 navigation -- pure interactivity
 guided tours -- using some narrative structure
 agent-mediated -- navigation and guided tours
development of the MetaMorph box
64 systematically varied agent types
ethics -- polite vs impolite
task relevance -- providing cues
valence -- task assistance
similarity -- relation to existing person
aesthetics -- (cliché’s of) beauty
epistemics -- photorealism
interactive PEFiC powered by DLP/STEP
DLP/STEP
programming platform
 declarative language -- for agent support
 multiple threads of control -- for multiple shared objects
 distributed communication -- networking capabilities (TCP/IP)
scripting behavior
 convenience -- for non-professional authors
 compositional semantics -- combining operations
 re-definability -- for high-level specification of actions
 parametrization -- for the adaptation of actions
 interaction -- with a (virtual) environment
agents in multi-user virtual environments
mixed-media presentations with commentators
Tai-Chi, domestic servants and conducting music
DLP/STEP applications
 tai-chi demonstrator
 grasping and reaching, using inverse kinematics and reasoning
 facial animation (with text-to-speech)
 virtual presenter -- presenting powerpoint presentation
some issues and pitfalls
complexity of domain of cultural heritage
limited number of experts with sufficient knowlegde
example task:
prepare an installation of a work of art in a museum
we should restrict the user’s task to exploration
or tasks requiring limited expertise
conclusions
we presented:
• an empirically tested model of engaging fiction
characters (PEFiC)
• test scenarios in the real-life application domain of
digital dossiers
• DLP+X3D/STEP technology to support virtual
environments and characters
all the ingredients needed to conduct proper agent research