Embodied Interfaces
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Many people assume that embodied agents (i.e. virtual
humans) will enhance HCI as they can….

take advantage of pre-existing social skills (e.g. body language)
 make an interaction more natural
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However, research in this area has failed (to date) to
clarify this
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Embodied agents that have been developed to date are
often of poor quality
My Research

Investigating psychological responses to embodied
agents (in particular, responses to emotion simulation)

Do we respond to a synthetic smile in a similar way to a human smile?
 How do we respond to synthetic displays of empathy?
 Can we catch emotions from computers?

An embodied nutritional coach has been built…
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Will attempt to help motivate people to eat more healthily
 Will make use of techniques that human health professionals often use

Experiments will be conducted over both short and longterm interactions
Reality Based Interaction

The more realistic an embodied agent is the more
effective communication should be


However, this doesn’t necessarily mean people will
prefer interacting with realistic virtual humans…


Realistic agents should be able to make use of body language and
social cues to enhance communication
Users may feel uncomfortable
Other agent representations may be preferred (e.g.
caricatures, abstract virtual humans)

Degree of agent realism is important
 A more realistic interaction may not always enhance HCI