The AVATAR kiosk as being developed by The University of Arizona, is an interactive screening technology which assists law enforcement at border crossings and airports to detect lies and other deceptive behaviours.

The AVATAR kiosk has a high definition camera that captures facial expression and is equipped with infrared sensors that detect eye dilation and movement. In addition, it has a microphone that picks up what you say and how you say it.

Currently, it is capable of assessing 15 different cues out of 500 psychophysiological and behavioral for detection such as body movement, vocalics, pupillometry and eye tracking, linguitistic and kinesic to cardioresiratory, and facial skin temperature.

As humans are only capable of controlling two or three cues at one time, and not all 15 at once, tell-tale cues can leak out easily, no matter how hard people try to control them when being interrogated.
In future, when more information is included on the kiosk, such as a fingerprint reader and a magnetic strip reader, human agents may select different avatars based on the individual being screened. In essence, the avatar should be able to detect human response and adjust accordingly. For example, if someone scans an Italian passport, the avatar will address the person in Italian.

Initial testing on how people respond to avatars of different ages, cultures and sexes have resulted that in general, the neutral male avatar was viewed as more powerful, and the female avatar was viewed as more likable, but ultimately the avatar may have dissimilar affects on individuals being screened.
The AVATAR Kiosk is still in its testing phase and will see further development and testing in 2011.

This technology is highly relevant in our context, the development of human like artificial AI. Nowadays, AI is capable of responding to typed text on websites, to some speech on the phone and to some gestures in gaming environment. This technology opens a wide range of intelligent conversational applications.