Title: Communicating with multiple users for embodied conversational agents in quiz game context

Authors: Hung-Hsuan Huang, Takuya Furukawa, Hiroki Ohashi, Toyoaki Nishida, Aleksandra Cerekovic, Igor S. Pandzic, Yukiko Nakano

Addresses: Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. ' Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. ' Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. ' Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. ' Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Department of Telecommunications, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. ' Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Department of Telecommunications, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. ' Department of Computer and Information Science, Seikei University, Kichijyoji Kita-machi 3-3-1, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180-8633, Japan

Abstract: This paper presents two approaches to achieve attentiveness of a virtual quiz agent in the interactions with multiple users at the same time. One attempts to improve the agent with an utterance strategy to determine whether, when, and whom to suggest the users the availability of hints or to urge the users to answer. In the other one, a transition state model presenting the agent|s attitude that allows the agent to perform meaningful idle motions is introduced. The transition model is obtained in a Wizard-of-Oz (WOZ) experiment and is learned with support vector machine (SVM). These two prototype systems are evaluated with an automatic attitude test, go/no-go task (GNAT) and regular questionnaires. From the joint results of the evaluation subject experiments, the direction of finding an appropriate triggering timing of the agent|s behaviours is proved to be effective.

Keywords: embodied conversational agents; ECA; affective computing; quiz games; support vector machines; SVM; human-agent interaction; evaluation; virtual quizzes; transition models; utterance strategy; agent behaviour; behaviour triggers; multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; multiple users; communication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIIDS.2010.036896

International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems, 2010 Vol.4 No.6, pp.579 - 598

Received: 31 Oct 2009
Accepted: 03 Apr 2010
Published online: 15 Nov 2010 *

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