Abstract Dialogue Modeling in Embodied Communicational Agents

2015

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Artificial Intelligence, 2008

This paper presents the NECA approach to the generation of dialogues between Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs). This approach consist of the automated constructtion of an abstract script for an entire dialogue (cast in terms of dialogue acts), which is incrementally enhanced by a series of modules and finally "performed" by means of text, speech and body language, by a cast of ECAs. The approach makes it possible to automatically produce a large variety of highly expressive dialogues, some of whose essential properties are under the control of a user. The paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of NECA's approach to Fully Generated Scripted Dialogue (FGSD), and explains the main techniques used in the two demonstrators that were built. The paper can be read as a survey of issues and techniques in the construction of ECAs, focussing on the generation of behaviour (i.e., focussing on information presentation) rather than on interpretation.

2003

Abstract In this paper we present some results to model complex interactions among virtual characters that participate in negotiation dialogues as well as our work related to a gaze model that controls the eye behavior of several agents conversing with each other. As a test-bed we have created an Avatar Arena in which several avatars negotiate on meeting arrangement tasks on behalf of their users.

1997

In order to participate in dialogues, an agent needs the capability of modeling mental states. Specifically, it is necessary to represent the agent attitudes (beliefs, intentions, and objectives), world knowledge, and temporal, reasoning and behavior rules. In this paper, we propose a logic programming framework that allows the representation of agent models. Agents are defined as logic programs that are extended with explicit negation.

This paper raises the question of the aim and scope of formal research on dialogue. Two possible answers are distinguished -the "engineering" and the "simulation" viewand an argument against the soundness of the "simulation" position is reviewed. This argument centres on the (im)possibility of formalising the context (or "background") needed for human-level language understanding. This argument is then applied to formal dialogue research and some consequences are discussed.

We describe the design, implementation and use of a middleware system, called DiscoRT, to support the development of virtual and robotic conversational agents. The use cases for this system include handling conversational and event-based interruptions, and supporting engagement maintenance behaviors, such as turn-taking, backchanneling, directed gaze and face tracking. The multi-threaded architecture of the system includes both "hard" and "soft" real-time scheduling and integrates with an existing collaborative discourse manager, called Disco. We have used the system to build a substantial conversational agent that is about to undergo long-term field studies.

Text, Speech and Language Technology, 2005

The functions of social dialogue between people in the context of performing a task is discussed, as well as approaches to modelling such dialogue in embodied conversational agents. A study of an agent's use of social dialogue is presented, comparing embodied interactions with similar interactions conducted over the phone, assessing the impact these media have on a wide range of behavioural, task and subjective measures. Results indicate that subjects' perceptions of the agent are sensitive to both interaction style (social vs. task-only dialogue) and medium.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2017

We present an intelligent embodied conversation agent with linguistic, social and emotional competence. Unlike the vast majority of the state-of-the-art conversation agents, the proposed agent is constructed around an ontology-based knowledge model that allows for flexible reasoning-driven dialogue planning, instead of using predefined dialogue scripts. It is further complemented by multimodal communication analysis and generation modules and a search engine for the retrieval of multimedia background content from the web needed for conducting a conversation on a given topic. The evaluation of the 1st prototype of the agent shows a high degree of acceptance of the agent by the users with respect to its trustworthiness, naturalness, etc. The individual technologies are being further improved in the 2nd prototype.

2019

In a setting where two AI agents embodied as animated humanoid avatars are engaged in a conversation with one human and each other, we see two challenges. One, determination by the AI agents about which one of them is being addressed. Two, determination by the AI agents if they may/could/should speak at the end of a turn. In this work we bring these two challenges together and explore the participation of AI agents in multi-party conversations. Particularly, we show two embodied AI shopkeeper agents who sell similar items aiming to get the business of a user by competing with each other on the price. In this scenario, we solve the first challenge by using headpose (estimated by deep learning techniques) to determine who the user is talking to. For the second challenge we use deontic logic to model rules of a negotiation conversation.

1998

Abstract In this paper we describe the computational and architectural requirements for systems which support real-time multimodal interaction with an embodied conversational character. We argue that the three primary design drivers are real-time multithreaded entrainment, processing of both interactional and propositional information, and an approach based on a functional understanding of human face-to-face conversation.