Virtual Agents for Professional Social Skills Training: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art

Bosman, Kim; Bosse, Tibor; Formolo, Daniel

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-16447-8_8

Cited by 13 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…During the early 1980s, short movies displaying high-quality animations involving realistic VHs (e.g., The Juggler from Adam Powers and Sexy Robot from Robert Abel; Magnenat-Thalmann and Thalmann, 2005) began to appear. Since then, computer graphics has increasingly evolved in computational speed and control methods, allowing the rendering of three-dimensional (3D) VHs much faster, with realistic graphics, and also suitable for real interactive applications (Badler, 1997;Waltemate et al, 2018;Bosman et al, 2019).…”

Section: Virtual Humans and Immersive Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, to be taken seriously, the development of the activities could require both specialist knowledge and professional actors' involvement. Lastly, roleplaying can also be threatening to the people who do not feel comfortable talking in the presence of others (Van Ments, 1989;Sogunro, 2004;Bosman et al, 2019). In response, the rapid technological advances with virtual agents in computergenerated environments offer an opportunity to complement and support traditional training delivery methods with a practical and cost-effective approach (Guadagno et al, 2007;Kim K. et al, 2018;Bosman et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lastly, roleplaying can also be threatening to the people who do not feel comfortable talking in the presence of others (Van Ments, 1989;Sogunro, 2004;Bosman et al, 2019). In response, the rapid technological advances with virtual agents in computergenerated environments offer an opportunity to complement and support traditional training delivery methods with a practical and cost-effective approach (Guadagno et al, 2007;Kim K. et al, 2018;Bosman et al, 2019). Based on these observations, we consider that an effective leadership training solution should provide continuous practice while interacting with others, similar to the traditional role-playing, but with improvements able to overcome current limitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating Virtual Human Role-Players for the Practice and Development of Leadership Skills

Suárez

Jung

Lindeman

2021

Front. Virtual Real.

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This article reports on a study to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual human (VH) role-players as leadership training tools within two computer-generated environments, virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR), compared to a traditional training method, real human (RH) role-players in a real-world (RW) environment. We developed an experimental training platform to assess the three conditions: RH role-players in RW (RH-RW), VH role-players in VR (VH-VR), and VH role-players in MR (VH-MR), during two practice-type opportunities, namely pre-session and post-session. We conducted a user study where 30 participants played the role of leaders in interacting with either RHs or VHs before and after receiving a leadership training session. We then investigated (1) if VH role-players were as effective as RH role-players during pre- and post-sessions, and (2) the impact that the human-type (RH, VH) in conjunction with the environment-type (RW, VR, MR) had on the outcomes. We also collected user reactions and learning data from the overall training experience. The results showed a regular increase in performance from pre- to post-sessions in all three conditions. However, we did not find a significant difference between VHs and RHs. Interestingly, the VH-MR condition had a more significant influence on performance and task engagement compared to the VH-VR and RH-RW conditions. Based on our findings, we conclude that VH role-players can be as effective as RH role-players to support the practice of leadership skills, where VH-MR could be the best method due to its effectiveness.

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Section: Virtual Humans and Immersive Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating Virtual Human Role-Players for the Practice and Development of Leadership Skills

Suárez

Jung

Lindeman

2021

Front. Virtual Real.

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“…For example, Tanaka et al [4] used virtual agents to assess listening skills and Jones et al [5] used them for expressing social attitudes. See [6] for an overview interactive agents dedicated to social training. Theoretical background work involving small group formations, including the definition of F-formations, o-spaces and personal spaces [7], [8] is a basis for designing the social demonstrator and have been used to model and study group joining and leaving behavior [9].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Virtual Agents for Supporting Appropriate Small Group Behaviors in Educational Contexts

Zojaji

Peters

2019

2019 11th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games)

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Verbal and non-verbal behaviors that we use in order to effectively communicate with other people are vital for our success in our daily lives. Despite the importance of social skills, creating standardized methods for training them and supporting their training is challenging. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) may have a good potential to support social and emotional learning (SEL) through virtual social demonstration games. This paper presents initial work involving the design of a pedagogical scenario to facilitate teaching of socially appropriate and inappropriate behaviors when entering and standing in a small group of people, a common occurrence in collaborative social situations. This is achieved through the use of virtual characters and, initially, virtual reality (VR) environments for supporting situated learning in multiple contexts. We describe work done thus far on the demonstrator scenario and anticipated potentials, pitfalls and challenges involved in the approach.

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“…In the past decade there have been quite a few developments in terms of applying Intelligent Virtual Agents in a Social Skills Training context [10]. These environments provide learners with realistic, but safe spaces that enables them to train specific verbal and nonverbal behaviors in order to adapt to socially challenging situations [8]. Users can interact with virtual agents, which are designed to deliver realistic socio-emotional interaction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Virtual Reality in the Social Presence of a Virtual Agent

Guimarães

Prada

Santos

et al. 2020

Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents

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In this work we test the hypothesis that interacting with an intelligent virtual character in Virtual Reality (VR) has a stronger impact compared to the same interaction in a traditional non-immersive platform, both in terms of presence and believability. We designed a Social Skills Training scenario of a police interview, based on interactions observed in real cases with the help of teachers and experts from that field. To test our hypothesis, we conducted experiments with two treatments: one in VR and the other displayed on a conventional computer screen. We collected qualitative and quantitative data using instruments with elements from well-established presence and situated interaction questionnaires. Results indicate that participant perception of social presence of virtual characters is higher in VR. No significant difference in believability was observed across treatments The experimental design encourages further work on measurement of effects of social presence and its impact on design of intelligent interactions in the context of Social Skills Training environments and immersive platforms. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; • Computing methodologies → Intelligent agents.

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Virtual Agents for Professional Social Skills Training: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art

Cited by 13 publications

References 14 publications

Evaluating Virtual Human Role-Players for the Practice and Development of Leadership Skills

Evaluating Virtual Human Role-Players for the Practice and Development of Leadership Skills

Towards Virtual Agents for Supporting Appropriate Small Group Behaviors in Educational Contexts

The Impact of Virtual Reality in the Social Presence of a Virtual Agent

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