Web-Based Embodied Conversational Agents and Older People

Llorach, Gerard; Agenjo, Javi; Blat, Josep; Sayago, Sergio

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-06076-3_8

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…One approach to closing the loop may be to use acted conversations (e.g., Beechey et al 2019 , 2020 ) in combination with virtual interactive animated characters in the virtual reality lab. This could be done via embodied conversational agents ( Llorach et al 2019 ), which are animated characters in the virtual reality that are controlled by a virtual conversational agent (e.g., Llorach & Blat 2017 ) or an actor (interactive puppeteering, e.g., Husinsky & Bruckner 2018 ). Another potential way to close the loop is to combine virtual-reality glasses with an omnidirectional treadmill, which may increase the interactivity and involvement of the subject while they perform hearing-related tasks.…”

Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Virtual Reality Lab: Realization and Application of Virtual Sound Environments

et al. 2020

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To assess perception with and performance of modern and future hearing devices with advanced adaptive signal processing capabilities, novel evaluation methods are required that go beyond already established methods. These novel methods will simulate to a certain extent the complexity and variability of acoustic conditions and acoustic communication styles in real life. This article discusses the current state and the perspectives of virtual reality technology use in the lab for designing complex audiovisual communication environments for hearing assessment and hearing device design and evaluation. In an effort to increase the ecological validity of lab experiments, that is, to increase the degree to which lab data reflect real-life hearing-related function, and to support the development of improved hearing-related procedures and interventions, this virtual reality lab marks a transition from conventional (audio-only) lab experiments to the field. The first part of the article introduces and discusses the notion of the communication loop as a theoretical basis for understanding the factors that are relevant for acoustic communication in real life. From this, requirements are derived that allow an assessment of the extent to which a virtual reality lab reflects these factors, and which may be used as a proxy for ecological validity. The most important factor of real-life communication identified is a closed communication loop among the actively behaving participants. The second part of the article gives an overview of the current developments towards a virtual reality lab at Oldenburg University that aims at interactive and reproducible testing of subjects with and without hearing devices in challenging communication conditions. The extent to which the virtual reality lab in its current state meets the requirements defined in the first part is discussed, along with its limitations and potential further developments. Finally, data are presented from a qualitative study that compared subject behavior and performance in two audiovisual environments presented in the virtual reality lab—a street and a cafeteria—with the corresponding field environments. The results show similarities and differences in subject behavior and performance between the lab and the field, indicating that the virtual reality lab in its current state marks a step towards more ecological validity in lab-based hearing and hearing device research, but requires further development towards higher levels of ecological validity.

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Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Virtual Reality Lab: Realization and Application of Virtual Sound Environments

et al. 2020

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“…In conventional practices, designers rely on specialized software to create 3D assets, which are subsequently integrated into applications by developers [15], [19], [26]. Improvements have been made in recent years to enhance this approach by focusing on the release of custom software to support the modeling or creation of 3D assets.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Servitization of Customized 3D Assets and Performance Comparison of Services and Microservices Implementations

Ruiz-Zafra,

Pigueiras-del-Real,

Noguera

et al. 2024

IEEE Trans. Serv. Comput.

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3D models (or assets) that are present in many of modern software applications are first modeled by graphic designers using dedicated computer graphic tools and then integrated into such software applications or apps by software developers. This simple workflow/procedure requires developers to have a basic grounding in computer graphics, since 3D engines, libraries and third-party software are needed for this kind of integrations. Oftentimes, 3D designers are also required to customize or produce versions of a 3D model and thus, they must re-model all the assets before they are returned back to the developers for integration into the applications. This procedure also occurs whenever a modification or customization is requested. One possible significant improvement to this traditional, poorly automated workflow is to use services-oriented technology and features servitization to carry out the customization of 3D assets on-demand. In this paper, we introduce µS3D, an open-source microservices-based platform designed to support features relating to the customization of 3D models. µS3D not only enables 3D assets to be customized without the need for computer graphic tools or designers, but also allows 3D models to be visualized through web technologies (e.g. HTML, Javascript and web component to visualize and interact with 3D models), thereby avoiding the development of computer graphics libraries or components in final software products. The paper describes the elements that µS3D comprises, explains how it works and presents a series of load tests to compare the performance (time consumption, CPU and memory utilization) of µS3D when implemented and deployed as a microservices platform against a monolithic-based implementation, showing similar results with a low number of users (and requests) but reducing, on average, 64.32% the response time in the microservice-based implementation for a large number of users; reducing CPU utilization on microservice-based implementation and remaining the memory usage more or less constant in both implementations.

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“…With ECAs, which are due to the interplay of visual and auditory interface design even more complex to implement, there is comparatively less guidance. However, there are avatar model “construction kits”, animation libraries, and lip-sync plugins available that can be integrated into tools commonly used in game development (e.g., “Unity”) to avoid starting from scratch (see Llorach et al 2019 ). The avatar can then be built as web-, desktop-, mobile- or even as an application for virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) glasses and controlled in real-time.…”

Section: Related Work and Opportunities For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%