How to provide users a positive experience during interaction with information (i.e., the "Information eXperience" (IX)) is still an open question. As a starting point, this work investigates how the emotion of interest can be influenced by modifying the complexity of the information presented to users. The appraisal theory of interest suggests a "sweet spot" where interest will be at its peak: information that is novel and complex yet still comprehensible. This "sweet spot" is approximated using two studies. Study One develops a computational model of textual complexity founded on psycholinguistic theory on processing difficulty. The model was trained and tested on 12,420 articles, achieving a classification performance of 90.87% on two classes of com- plexity. Study Two puts the model to its ultimate test: Its application to change the user's IX. Using 18 news articles the influence of complexity on interest and its appraisals is unveiled. A structural equation model shows a positive influence of complexity on interest, yet a negative influence of comprehensibility, confirming a seemingly paradoxical relationship between complexity and interest. By showing when complexity becomes interesting, this paper shows how information systemscan use the model of textual complexity to construct an interesting IX.

We report on a pilot experiment that investigated the effects of different eye gaze behaviours of a cartoon-like talking face on the quality of human-agent dialogues. We compared a version of the talking face that roughly implements some patterns of human-like behaviour with two other versions. In one of the other versions the shifts in gaze were kept minimal and in the other version the shifts would occur randomly. The talking face has a number of restrictions. There is no speech recognition, so questions and replies have to be typed in by the users of the systems. Despite this restriction we found that participants that conversed with the agent that behaved according to the human-like patterns appreciated the agent better than participants that conversed with the other agents. Conversations with the optimal version also proceeded more efficiently. Participants needed less time to complete their task.

We study the effectiveness of stereoscopy and smooth motion as 3D cues for medical interpretation of vascular structures as obtained by 3D medical imaging techniques. We designed a user study where the user has to follow a path in a mazelike solid shaded 3D structure. The user controls rotation of the model. We measure user performance in terms of time taken and error rate. The experiment was executed with 32 (medical and non-medical) users. The results show that motion cue is more important than stereoscopy, and that stereoscopy has no added value when motion is already present, which is not consistent with previous experiments.

No abstract

How a robot approaches a person greatly determines the interaction that follows. This is particularly relevant when the person has never interacted with the robot before. In human communication, we exchange a multitude of multimodal signals to communicate our intent while we approach others. However, most robots do not have the capabilities to produce such signals and easily communicate their intent. In this paper we propose to communicate intent when a robot approaches a person through functional noise and approach speed. Both were manipulated in a between-subjects experiment (N=40) either slowly increasing at the start of the approach and slowly decreasing when the robot reached the human or maximized at the start and abruptly stopped at the end of the approach. We analyzed questionnaires and video data from the interaction and found that particularly functional noise that in-/decreased in volume was helpful to communicate the robot's intent but only in congruence with an in-/decreasing velocity.

No abstract

No abstract

In this paper we discuss a framework for simulation software called the movie metaphor. It is applied to the Dutch Driving Simulator for dynamic control of traffic scenarios. This framework resolves software complexity by the use of agent protocols inspired by the way of working on a movie set. It defines clear responsibilities for the agents so that the system is extensible, maintainable and easy to understand. The framework is a software pattern for multiagent systems especially suitable for simulation software and games.