Skip to main content

Engaging in a Conversation with Synthetic Characters Along the Virtuality Continuum

  • Conference paper
Smart Graphics (SG 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 3638))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 1304 Accesses

  • 3 Citations

Abstract

During the last decade research groups as well as a number of commercial software developers have started to deploy embodied conversational characters in the user interface especially in those application areas where a close emulation of multimodal human-human communication is needed. Most of these characters have one thing in common: In order to enter the user’s physical world, they need to be physical themselves. The paper focuses on challenges that arise when embedding synthetic conversational agents in the user’s physical world. We will start from work on synthetic agents that populate virtual worlds and anthropomorphic robots that inhabit physical worlds and discuss how the two areas need to be combined in order to populate physical worlds with synthetic characters. Finally, we will report on so-called traversable interfaces that allow agents to cross the border from the physical space to the virtual space and vice versa.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Gratch, J., Rickel, J., André, E., Badler, N., Cassell, J., Petajan, E.: Creating interactive virtual humans: Some assembly required. IEEE Intelligent Systems 17, 54–63 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Milgram, P., Kishino, F.: A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays. IEICE Transactions on Information Systems E77-D, 1321–1329 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Sidner, C.L., Kidd, C.D., Lee, C., Lesh, N.: Where to look: a study of human-robot engagement. In: IUI 2004: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Intelligent user interface, pp. 78–84. ACM Press, New York (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Jeff Rickel, W.L.J.: Animated agents for procedural training in virtual reality: Perception, cognition, and motor control. Applied Artificial Intelligence 29, 343–382 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Cavazza, M., Charles, F., Mead, S.J., Martin, O., Marichal, X., Nandi, A.: Multimodal acting in mixed reality interactive storytelling. IEEE-Multimedia 11, 30–39 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kruppa, M., Spassova, L., Schmitz, M.: The virtual room inhabitant. In: Proc. of the IUI-2005Workshop on Multi-User and Ubiquitous User Interfaces (MU3I), San Diego, USA (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  7. André, E., Dorfmüller-Ulhaas, K., Rist, T.: Embodied conversational characters: Wandering between the digital and the physical world. IT - Information Technology 46, 332–340 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Peters, C., O’Sullivan, C.: Bottom-up Visual Attention for Virtual Human Animation. In: Proceedings of the Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA 2003), pp. 111–117. Rutgers University, New York (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Hill, R.: Modeling Perceptual Attention in Virtual Humans. In: Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Computer Generated Forces and Behavioral Representation, Orlando, FL (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Chopra-Khullar, S., Badler, N.I.: Where to look? Automating attending behaviors of virtual human characters. In: Proceedings of the third annual conference on Autonomous Agents, pp. 16–23. ACM Press, New York (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Jung, B., Kopp, S.: Flurmax: An interactive virtual agent for entertaining visitors in a hallway. In: Rist, T., et al (eds.) Intelligent Virtual Agents, pp. 23–26. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Kopp, S., Jung, B., Lessmann, N., Wachsmuth, I.: Max — A Multimodal Assistant in Virtual Reality Construction. KI – Künstliche Intelligenz, 11–17 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Clark, H.: Using Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1996)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. Nakano, Y., Reinstein, G., Stocky, T., Cassell, J.: Towards a model of face-to-face grounding. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2003), pp. 553–561 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Clark, H.H.: Pointing and Placing. In: Kita, S. (ed.) Pointing: Where language, culture, and cognition meet, pp. 1–17. Erlbaum, Hillsdale (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gorniak, P., Roy, D.: A visually grounded natural language interface for reference to spatial scenes. In: ICMI 2003: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Multimodal interfaces, pp. 219–226. ACM Press, New York (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Roy, D., Hsiao, K.-Y., Mavridis, N.: Mental imagery for a conversational robot. IEEE Transactions On Systems, Man, And Cybernetics 34, 1374–1383 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Kendon, A.: Nonverbal Communication, Interaction, and Gesture. Mouton, The Hague (1981)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  19. Argyle, M., Cook, M.: Gaze and Mutual Gaze. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1976)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Vertegaal, R., Slagter, R., van der Veer, G., Nijholt, A.: Eye gaze patterns in conversations: there is more to conversational agents than meets the eyes. In: CHI 2001: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 301–308. ACM Press, New York (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Nakano, Y.I., Nishida, T.: Awareness of Perceived World and Conversational Engagement by Conversational Agents. In: Proceedings of the AISB 2005 Symposium on Conversational Informatics for Supporting Social Intelligence & Interaction (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Peters, C.: Foundations of an Agent Theory of Mind Model for Conversation Initiation in Virtual Environments. In: Proceedings of the AISB 2005 Joint Symposium on Virtual Social AGents, pp. 163–170 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Baron-Cohen, S.: How to build a baby that can read minds: Cognitive Mechanisms in Mind-Reading. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive 13, 513–552 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lester, J., Voerman, J., Towns, S., Callaway, C.: Deictic Believability: Coordinating Gesture, Locomotion, and Speech in Lifelike Pedagogical Agents. Applied Artificial Intelligence 29, 383–414 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Guye-Vuillième, A., Thalmann, D.: A high level architecture for believable social agents. Virtual Reality Journal 5, 95–106 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Bailenson, J.N., Blasovich, J., Beall, A.C., Loomis, J.M.: Interpersonal distance in immersive virtual environments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, 819–833 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Koleva, B., Schnädelbach, H., Benford, S., Greenhalgh, C.: Traversable interfaces between real and virtual worlds. In: CHI 2000: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 233–240. ACM Press, New York (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Witmer, B., Singer, M.: Measuring presence in virtual environments: A presence questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 7, 225–240 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Rocchi, C., Stock, O., Zancanaro, M., Kruppa, M., Krüger, A.: The museum visit: generating seamless personalized presentations on multiple devices. In: IUI 2004: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Intelligent user interface, pp. 316–318. ACM Press, New York (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

André, E., Dorfmüller-Ulhaas, K., Rehm, M. (2005). Engaging in a Conversation with Synthetic Characters Along the Virtuality Continuum. In: Butz, A., Fisher, B., Krüger, A., Olivier, P. (eds) Smart Graphics. SG 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3638. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11536482_1

Download citation

Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Publish with us

Policies and ethics