Enhancing Human-Computer Interaction with Embodied Conversational Agents

Abstract

We survey recent research in which the impact of an embodied conversational agent on human-computer interaction has been assessed through a human evaluation. In some cases, the evaluation involved comparing different versions of the agent against itself in the context of a full interactive system; in others, it measured the effect on user perception of spoken output of specific aspects of the embodied agent's behaviour. In almost all of the studies, an embodied agent that displays appropriate non-verbal behaviour was found to enhance the interaction.

The Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality

“…For cognitive neuroscience and psychology, it is concerned with the question of how the brain represents the body (Berlucchi & Aglioti, 1997;Graziano & Botvinick, 2002) and how this representation is altered under certain neurological conditions (Lenggenhager, Smith, & Blanke, 2006;Metzinger, 2009). In contrast, in robotics, the concept is employed to distinguish ways through which artificial forms of intelligence are represented contrasting those virtual agents and robots that have a real physical representation compared to those that do not (Foster, 2007;Holz, Dragone, & O'Hare, 2009;Wainer, Feil-Seifer, Shell, & Mataric, 2006). Embodiment has been also discussed in relation to presence in virtual environments (Biocca, 1997), especially as there is evidence to suggest that a virtual body in the context of a head-mounted display based virtual reality is a critical contributor to the sense of being in the virtual location (Slater, Spanlang, & Corominas, 2010).…”

Evaluating embodied conversational agents in multimodal interfaces

“…social situation, could be empirically observed, as the existence of anthropomorphic human interfaces, even those just accompanying traditional interfaces like web-sites, can result in a higher quality (more positive subjective evaluation) of the service or interface and/or in higher performance (efficiency and effectiveness measured as scores and time-to-complete). This persona effect, however, is highly debated, as it seems to be dependent on task, system, and situation (Dehn and van Mulken 2000;Foster 2007;Yee et al 2007). Also, there is the question, whether the persona effect resembles an effect of mere presence like the social facilitation effect (see below) or if it is a result of a more natural and intuitive interaction.…”

Performing with a system's intention

“…Several approaches have been explored, many based on designing interfaces that model the human body in some way and uses the model in a natural manner as a primary feature in the interaction. Foster undertook a project of comparing embodied cues in conversational agents and found that "…these studies demonstrate adding an expressive embodied interface agent to a computer system can often have a positive effect on users' interactions with that system" [5]. In a similar project, Whalen, Hoequist and Sheffert focused on the affects of synthesized breath on the perception of synthesized speech [19].…”

“…The use of simulated breath has been reported to enhance participants' understanding and recall of synthesized speech [5] [19], yet Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored.…”