Embodied conversational interface agents

TLDR: Here, some of the features of human-human conversation being implemented in this new genre of embodied conversational agent are described, exploring a notable embodied Conversational agent—named Rea—based on these features.

Abstract: More than another friendly face, Rea knows how to have a conversation with living, breathing human users with a wink, a nod, and a sidelong glance. A nimals and humans all manifest social qualities and skills. Dogs recognize dominance and submission , stand corrected by their superiors, demonstrate consistent personalities, and so forth. On the other hand, only humans communicate through language and carry on conversations with one another. The skills involved in human conversation have developed in such a way as to exploit all the special characteristics of the human body. We make complex repre-sentational gestures with our prehensile hands, gaze away and toward one another out of the corners of our centrally set eyes, and use the pitch and melody of our flexible voices to emphasize and clarify what we are saying. Perhaps because conversation is so defining of humanness and human interaction, the metaphor of face-to-face conversation has been applied to human-computer interface design for quite some time. One of the early arguments for the utility of this metaphor pointed to the application of the features of face-to-face conversation in human-computer interaction, including mixed initiative, nonverbal communication , sense of presence, and the rules involved in transferring control [9]. However, although these features have gained widespread recognition, human-computer conversation has only recently become more than a metaphor. That is, only recently have human-computer interface designers taken the metaphor seriously enough to attempt to design a computer that could hold up its end of the conversation with a human user. Here, I describe some of the features of human-human conversation being implemented in this new genre of embodied conversational agent, exploring a notable embodied conversational agent—named Rea—based on these features. Because conversation is such a primary skill for humans and learned so early in life (practiced, in fact, between infants and their mothers taking turns cooing and burbling EMBODIED CONVERSATIONAL INTERFACE AGENTS