virtual agent Papers

Game agents(NPCs) should have the ability to react in cooperate, and have the ability to learn from mistakes and build up their own experience. In this paper, we describe a general approach for transfer learning and adaptive mechanism for game agents' real-time planning and learning system in which agents modify their behavior in response to changes of the PCs. Read more

This paper describes the ORACLE, an embodied intelligent virtual agent designed and built for helping players of a serious game named ORIENT [1]. The game challenges players at the socio-cultural level, because it requires them to learn how to interact smoothly with alien characters in order to save their planet. The ORACLE is a virtual agent on a mobile phone, whose goal is to enhance the users' learning in the game. The agent can both... Read more

Multimodal user interfaces are becoming more and more important in human-machine communication. Essential representatives of such interfaces are virtual agents that aim to act like humans in the way they employ gestures, facial expression, posture and prosody to convey their emotions in face-to-face communication. Furthermore, if we employ a presentation team [1] to convey facts, the performance becomes more entertaining for the audience. Distinct characters should have different roles and personality profiles. Moreover if we... Read more

The multi-modal rock-paper-scissors game is an interactive computer game where the opponent of the human player is a virtual agent appearing on the computer screen. The game is similar to the game between humans, the communication takes place by the tools of image and sound processing. Read more

By using parameterization techniques which model artistic, living or cognitive systems it is becoming possible to create new types of behavior and expression character systems. These techniques are allowing virtual agent creators to incorporate models of expression, emotion, behavior and even human creativity into their work. Additionally, rather than simply using realism as a goal, is it becoming possible to computationally model knowledge from other expression-based sources including artists, musicians and designers, to go beyond... Read more

DEIRA is a virtual agent commenting on virtual horse races in real time. DEIRA analyses the state of the race, acts emotionally and comments about the situation in a believable and engaging way, using synthesized speech and facial expressions. In this paper we discuss the challenges, explain the computational models for the cognitive, emotional and communicative behavior, and account on implementation and feedback from users. Read more

This paper describes the Evolutionary Virtual Agent (EVA) prototype designed as an interactive entertainment system for a multimedia exhibition. This implementation uses a behavioral engine based on a dynamical subsumption architecture and a 3D animated interface that has been projected onto a physical model. Read more

Chatbots are computer programs that interact with users using natural languages. This technology started in the 1960’s; the aim was to see if chatbot systems could fool users that they were real humans. However, chatbot systems are not only built to mimic human conversation, and entertain users. In this paper, we investigate other applications where chatbots could be useful such as education, information retrival, business, and e-commerce. A range of chatbots with useful applications, including several... Read more

Recent research has established the potential for virtual characters to establish rapport with humans through simple contingent nonverbal behaviors. We hypothesized that the contingency, not just the frequency of positive feedback is crucial when it comes to creating rapport. The primary goal in this study was evaluative: can an agent generate behavior that engenders feelings of rapport in human speakers and how does this compare to human generated feedback? A secondary goal was to answer... Read more

As access to information becomes more intensive in society, a great deal of that information is becoming available through diverse channels. Accordingly, users require effective methods for accessing this information. Conversational agents can act as effective and familiar user interfaces. Although conversational agents can analyze the queries of users based on a static process, they cannot manage expressions that are more complex. In this paper, we propose a system that uses semantic Bayesian networks to infer the intentions of... Read more