It is still an open question whether software agents should be personified in the interface. In order to study the effects of faces and facial expressions in the interface, a series of experiments was conducted to compare subjects' responses to and evaluation of different faces and facial expressions. The experimental results obtained demonstrate that: 1) personified interfaces help users engage in a task, and are well suited for an entertainment domain; 2) people's impressions of a face in a task are different from ones of the face in isolation. Perceived intelligence of a face is determined not by the agent's appearance but by its competence; 3) there is a dichotomy between user groups which have opposite opinions about personification. Thus, agent-based interfaces should be flexible to support the diversity of users' preferences and the nature of tasks. 1. Introduction There is a growing interest in interface agents which assist a user in performing daily computer tasks. Software...

... major open research directions in mobile robotics. This paper considers a specific type of interaction: short-term and spontaneous interaction with crowds of people. Such patterns of interactions are found when service robots operate in public places, for example information kiosks, receptionists, tour-guide robots applications. We describe our approach to spontaneous short-term interaction: a robot designed to be a believable social agent. The approach has been implemented using a mobile robot with a motorized face as focal point for interaction, an architecture that suggests the robot has moods, and a method for learning how to interact with people. Our system was recently deployed at a Smithsonian museum in Washington, DC. During a two week period it interacted with thousands of people. The robot's interactive capabilities were essential for its high on-task performance, and thus its practical success.

This paper details results of an experiment to empirically evaluate the effectiveness and user acceptability of human-like synthetic agents in a multi-modal electronic retail scenario. The synthetic personae played the roles of interactive conversational sales assistants. The range of life-like personae differed with respect to gender and technology. Participants took part in the controlled experiment, which involved them eavesdropping on spoken dialogues between a customer and each of the synthetic personae. They also completed questionnaires and took part in a debriefing interview designed to elicit information relating to the effectiveness, believability and perceived quality of each of the personae. Results show that participants expected a high level of realistic and human-like verbal and non-verbal communicative behaviour in the synthetic personae. This was demonstrated in the strong preference for personae that exhibited natural facial expressions, gestures and emotions. It was also found that disembodied voices were significantly preferred to many of the personae. In addition, results show participants had significantly different attitudes to the voices of the personae.

Research on anthropomorphic agent interfaces has produced widely divergent results. We suggest that this is due to insufficient consideration of key factors that influence the perception and effectiveness of agent-based interfaces. We propose a framework for studying anthropomorphic agents that can systematize the research. The framework emphasizes features of the agent, the user, and the task the user is performing. Our initial experiment within this framework manipulated the agent’s appearance (lifelike versus iconic) and the nature of the user’s task (carrying out procedures versus providing opinions). We found that the perception of the agent was strongly influenced by the task while features of the agent that we manipulated had little effect.

This paper presents three experiments designed to empirically evaluate humanoid synthetic agents in electronic retail applications. Firstly, human-like agents were evaluated in a single e-retail application, a home furnishings service. The second experiment explored application dependency effects by evaluating the same human-like agents in a different e-retail application, a personalized CD service. The third experiment evaluated the effectiveness of a range of humanoid cartoon-like agents. Participants eavesdropped on spoken dialogues between a "customer" and each of the agents, which played the role of conversational sales assistants. Results showed participants expected a high level of realistic human-like verbal and nonverbal communicative behavior from the human-like agents. Overall ratings of the agents showed no significant application dependency: Two different groups of participants rated the human-like agents in similar ways in a different application. Further results showed participants have a preference for three--dimensional (3-D) rather than two--dimensional (2-D) cartoon-like agents and have a desire to interact with fully embodied agents. I.

this article focuses, these issues remains relatively poorly explored (despite various efforts, such as [1, 6, 11, 15, 30, 31]), specifically in comparison to mobile robot navigation, which has been investigated thoroughly (see e.g., [3, 5, 14])

Abstract: Research has found that animated characters are capable of capturing users ’ attention, engaging them in active tasks, and entertaining them. Such capabilities are pedagogical techniques that might contribute to an effective comprehensible multimedia presentation. Quality of voice has also been shown to be an important determinant of comprehension. The current study examines the effects of animated characters and voice types on comprehension and attention performance in learning from a multimedia presentation. Because animated characters rely on affective social responses to produce pedagogical benefits, there are also likely to be significant individual differences. This study investigates the influence of introversion/extroversion on the effectiveness of the presentations as well. A 3 (no character, nonanthropomorphic character, anthropomorphic character) x 2 (synthetic voice vs. human voice) factorial between-subject design was employed. While animated characters did not increase learning in the present study; results suggested that animated characters might be useful as a peripheral tool to retain learners ’ attention and maintain engagement with the learning material. Results regarding the degree of participants ’ extroversion (benefits appeared limited to introverted participants) suggest that personality should be taken into account in designing learning environments.

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Research on embodied conversational agent interfaces has produced widely divergent results. We suggest that this is due to insufficient consideration of key factors that influence the perception and effectiveness of agent-based interfaces. Thus, we propose a framework for the evaluation of conversational agent interfaces that can systematize the research. The framework emphasizes features of the agent, characteristics of the user, and the task the user is performing. We have conducted experiments within this framework. The first study manipulated the agent's appearance (lifelike versus iconic) and the nature of the user's task (carrying out procedures versus providing opinions). We found that the perception of the agent was strongly influenced by the task while features of the agent that we manipulated had little effect. The second study (in progress) manipulates the initiative of the agent (proactive versus reactive). Initial analysis of the data showed that the participants strongly preferred proactive agents while initiative of the agent had little effect on their task performance.

Abstract. Rapid increases in agent technology as well as the movement of computing into more and more social transactions has increased the need for embodied interface agents. However, interaction designers currently lack sufficient guidelines to confidently and successfully design the visual form of these agents. In this paper we offer a summary of research on the visual form of agents. In addition, we present our own study that explores the relationships between an agents visual form, the task it performs, and the demographics of users. As a result of the review and our own study, we frame the task of design of an agent’s form as being similar to “casting”. Finally, we offer some design guidelines to aid interaction designers in selecting human and non-human forms, in deciding how to address stereotypes, and in looking for opportunities to recast the agent’s visual form. 1