3rd Workshop on Multimodal Output Generation, Jul 6, 2010
This paper presents our experience of designing the educational collaborative role-play game ORIE... more This paper presents our experience of designing the educational collaborative role-play game ORIENT with a special focus on the multimodal interaction used in the game. The idea behind ORIENT is to try increasing a user's intercultural empathy through role-play set in a science fiction narrative in which the users have to befriend an alien race, the Sprytes. The Sprytes are virtual characters that communicate with the users through a mix of gestures and natural language. We explain how the choice and design of those output modalities ...
Abstract. In this paper we describe BAMUVA. BAMUVA is Robot based behavioural architecture design... more Abstract. In this paper we describe BAMUVA. BAMUVA is Robot based behavioural architecture designed to create Intelligent Agents in a Virtual Environment, where each agent senses obstacles and other moving creatures in the environment and reacts to them. The architecture consists of a Behaviour layer, a motor layer and a library of sensors. Keywords: Agents, Virtual Environments, Behaviour robotics, CAVE, Maverik, Linux, OpenGL, Animation.
In this paper we describe an emotional-behaviouralarchitecture. The emotional engine is a higherl... more In this paper we describe an emotional-behaviouralarchitecture. The emotional engine is a higherlayer than the behaviour system, and it can alterbehaviour patterns, the engines is designed to simulateEmotionally-Intelligent Agents in a Virtual Environment, where each agent senses its own emotions, and other creature emotions through a virtual smellsensor; senses obstacles and other moving creatures inthe environment and reacts to them. The architectureconsists of an emotion engine, behaviour synthesissystem, a motor layer and ...
The Emergent Affective and Personality model is a bodymind model of emotions for a mobile tour gu... more The Emergent Affective and Personality model is a bodymind model of emotions for a mobile tour guide agent. This research is inspired by work in Psychology, Brain Research, Personality, Narrative, Mobile Computing and Artificial Intelligence. The main goal is to build an 'intelligent guide with attitude'. This paper presents a review of related work, the affective model and the future work to be carried out.
The impetus for this field comes from a number of directions. Firstly, as the amount of processin... more The impetus for this field comes from a number of directions. Firstly, as the amount of processing power available for rendering has increased, it has now become feasible to devote a little of it to aspects of a VE beyond visual realism. However visually appealing a VE is, if it is static and empty of change and behaviour, the immersive experience is of limited interest. Cities without people cannot make the user feel a real sense of presence. While animation can create dynamic interest, its pre-scripted nature runs against the interactional freedom a VE gives users and can only hold their interest for a limited time.
Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agents Systems, May 5, 2014
This paper discusses the design and evaluation of the system MIXER (Moderating Interactions for C... more This paper discusses the design and evaluation of the system MIXER (Moderating Interactions for Cross-Cultural Empathic Relationships), which applies a novel approach to the education of children in cultural sensitivity. MIXER incorporates intelligent affective and interactive characters, including a model of a Theory of Mind mechanism, in a simulated virtual world. We discuss the relevant pedagogical approaches, related work, the underlying mind model used for MIXER agents as well as its innovative interaction interface utilising a tablet computer and a pictorial interaction language. We then consider the evaluation of the system, whether this shows it met its pedagogical objectives, and what can be learned from our results.
Autonomous Agents & Multiagent Systems/Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, 2008
We report the implementation and evaluation of a Simulation Theory (ST) approach to the Theory of... more We report the implementation and evaluation of a Simulation Theory (ST) approach to the Theory of Mind in intelligent graphical agents driven by an affective agent architecture FAtiMA. The existing cognitive appraisal mechanism is adapted to produce a second appraisal cycle, a double appraisal, in order to evaluate the emotional impact of possible actions. The action with the greatest emotional impact is selected as a means of producing more interesting dramatic actions. A variant in which the actual minds of characters present are used is also implemented and evaluated. Results show that these mechanisms do produce more interesting stories.
Autonomous Agents & Multiagent Systems/Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, 2009
We present a demonstration of the intelligent agent-based system ORIENT (Overcoming Refugee Integ... more We present a demonstration of the intelligent agent-based system ORIENT (Overcoming Refugee Integration with Empathic Novel Technology). We summarise the application domain: education for inter-cultural empathy; the technology used and the innovations this involves; and finally interaction with ORIENT.
RO-MAN 2009 - The 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2009
This work proposes an initial memory model for a long-term artificial companion, which migrates a... more This work proposes an initial memory model for a long-term artificial companion, which migrates among virtual and robot platforms based on the context of interactions with the human user. This memory model enables the companion to remember events that are relevant or significant to itself or to the user. For other events which are either ethically sensitive or with a lower long-term value, the memory model supports forgetting through the processes of generalisation and memory restructuring. The proposed memory model draws inspiration from the human short-term and long-term memories. The short-term memory will support companions in focusing on the stimuli that are relevant to their current active goals within the environment. The long-term memory will contain episodic events that are chronologically sequenced and derived from the companion's interaction history both with the environment and the user. There are two key questions that we try to address in this work: 1) What information should the companion remember in order to generate appropriate behaviours and thus smooth the interaction with the user? And, 2) What are the relevant aspects to take into consideration during the design of memory for a companion that can have different types of virtual and physical bodies? Finally, we show an implementation plan of the memory model, focusing on issues of information grounding, activation and sensing based on specific hardware platforms.
Role-play can be a powerful educational tool, especially when dealing with social or ethical issu... more Role-play can be a powerful educational tool, especially when dealing with social or ethical issues. However while other types of education activity have been routinely technology-enhanced for some time, the specific problems of supporting educational role-play with technology have only begun to be tackled recently. Within the eCIRCUS project we have designed a framework for technology-enhanced role-play with the aim of educating adolescents about intercultural empathy. This work was influenced by related fields such as intelligent virtual agents, interactive narrative and pervasive games. In this paper we will describe the different components of our role-play technology by means of a prototype implementation of this technology, the ORIENT showcase. Furthermore we will present some preliminary results of our first evaluation trials of ORIENT.
This paper investigates how graphically displayed intelligent virtual actors, mobile devices and ... more This paper investigates how graphically displayed intelligent virtual actors, mobile devices and innovative interaction modalities can support and enhance educational role-play as well as deepen the sense of engagement and presence in participants to produce more successful learning. The discussion will be presented using a showcase from the eCIRCUS project, ORIENT, an application combining virtual and real life role-play for social and emotional learning.
This paper examines the causes and consequences of the narrative paradox phenomenon widely observ... more This paper examines the causes and consequences of the narrative paradox phenomenon widely observed in VR. We present an alternative approach to virtual and interactive storytelling in the form of the emergent narrative concept, together with an implementation of a subset of these ideas in the FearNot! demonstrator.
This paper considers the problem of evaluating interactive narrative and discusses the storificat... more This paper considers the problem of evaluating interactive narrative and discusses the storification process through which a narrative is internalised. It establishes the range of roles that a user may take, and argues that the participant/non-participant distinction has a key role in storification. An experiment carried out as part of a larger test of a double appraisal approach to the creation of more dramatic characters is discussed. The results show that spectators and participants mark different stories as the most interesting, showing that this role difference does indeed impact their assessment of a narrative experience. The implications for story evaluation are discussed.
In this technical paper, we describe an implementation of Distributed Drama Management (DDM). DDM... more In this technical paper, we describe an implementation of Distributed Drama Management (DDM). DDM is a concept which involves synthetic actor agents in an Emergent Narrative scenario acting on both an in-character level, which reflects the concerns of the characters, and an out-of-character level, which reflects the concerns of a storyteller. By selecting the most "dramatically appropriate" action from a set of autonomously proposed actions, Distributed Drama Management aims to retain the benefits of Emergent Narrative such as believability and agility of response to user actions, but attempts to provide a structurally and emotionally consistent experience.
This paper gives an overview of the UK network RIDERS-Research in Interactive Drama Environments,... more This paper gives an overview of the UK network RIDERS-Research in Interactive Drama Environments, Role-Play and Story-telling, running for 36 months from September 2011. It discusses the three central themes of RIDERS: theoretical work on the conflict between interactivity and narrative content, problems, issues and tools relating to authoring, and directions in evaluation. It gives a brief overview of the current position in each of these areas and suggests how RIDERS activity might be able to contribute to them. Finally it summarises the overall RIDERS programme of activity.
This paper discusses work in implementing emotional and cultural models into synthetic graphical ... more This paper discusses work in implementing emotional and cultural models into synthetic graphical characters. An architecture, FAtiMA, implemented first in the anti-bullying application FearNot! and then extended as FAtiMA-PSI in the cultural-sensitivity application ORIENT, is discussed. We discuss the modelling relationships between culture, social interaction and cognitive appraisal. Integrating a lower-level homeostatically-based model is also considered as a means of handling some of the limitations of a purely symbolic approach. Evaluation to date is summarised and future directions discussed. http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/emotion-review Emotion Review
Intelligent Agents for Mobile and Virtual Media, 2002
Although this is a complete paper, it might be best reviewed as an extended abstract as I would l... more Although this is a complete paper, it might be best reviewed as an extended abstract as I would like to extend and revise it as well as add some new work to it. Kind regards Daniel Ballin Figure 1 A Picture of the 'real' Teletubbies
Video games in general and educational role play games in particular would increase in believabil... more Video games in general and educational role play games in particular would increase in believability if Non Player Characters reacted appropriately to the player's actions. Realistic and responsive feedback from game characters is important to increase engagement and enjoyment in players. In this paper, we discuss the modelling of autonomous characters based on a biologically-inspired theory of human action regulation taking into account perception, motivation, emotions, memory, learning and planning. These agents populate an educational Role Playing Game, ORIENT (Overcoming Refugee Integration with Empathic Novel Technology) dealing with the cultural-awareness problem for children aged 13 to 14.
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Papers by Ruth Aylett