Abstract
Currently, applications that focus on providing conversations with virtual humans require extensive work to create robust conversational models. We present a new approach called Human-centered Distributed Conversational Modeling. Using this approach, users create conversational models in a distributed manner. To do this, end-users interact with virtual humans to provide new stimuli (questions and statements), and domain-specific experts (e.g. medical/psychology educators) provide new virtual human responses. Using this process, users become the primary developers of conversational models. We tested our approach by creating an example application, Virtual People Factory. Using Virtual People Factory, a pharmacy instructor and 186 pharmacy students were able to create a robust conversational model in 15 hours. This is approximately 10% of the time typical in current approaches and results in more comprehensive coverage of the conversational space. In addition, surveys demonstrate the acceptability of this approach by both educators and students.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Kenny, P., et al.: Building interactive virtual humans for training environments. In: ITSEC 2007, NTSA (2007)
Dickerson, R., et al.: Evaluating a Script-Based Approach for Simulating Patient-Doctor Interaction. In: SCS 2005 International Conference on Human-Computer Interface Advances for Modeling and Simulation, pp. 79–84 (2005)
Kenny, P., Parsons, T.D., Gratch, J., Rizzo, A.A.: Evaluation of justina: A virtual patient with PTSD. In: Prendinger, H., Lester, J.C., Ishizuka, M. (eds.) IVA 2008. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 5208, pp. 394–408. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Leuski, A., et al.: Building effective question answering characters. In: Proceedings of the 7th SIGdial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue (2006)
Reiter, E., Sripada, S., Robertson, R.: Acquiring correct knowledge for natural language generation. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 18, 491–516 (2003)
Singh, P., et al.: Open Mind Common Sense: Knowledge Acquisition from the General Public. In: On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2002: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE, pp. 1223–1237 (2002)
von Ahn, L., Dabbish, L.: Labeling images with a computer game. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 319–326 (2004)
Villaume, W.A., Berger, B.A., Barker, B.N.: Learning Motivational Interviewing: Scripting a Virtual Patient. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 70(2) (2006)
Ruttkay, Z., et al.: Evaluating Embodied Conversational Agents. Evaluating Embodied Conversational Agents 4121 (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Rossen, B., Lind, S., Lok, B. (2009). Human-Centered Distributed Conversational Modeling: Efficient Modeling of Robust Virtual Human Conversations. In: Ruttkay, Z., Kipp, M., Nijholt, A., Vilhjálmsson, H.H. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5773. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04380-2_52
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04380-2_52
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04379-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04380-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)