Skip to main content

Embodied Conversational Agents on a Common Ground

A Framework for Design and Evaluation

  • Chapter
From Brows to Trust

Part of the book series: Human-Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS,volume 7))

Abstract

One would like to rely on design guidelines for embodied conversational agents (ECAs), grounded on evaluation studies. How to define the physical and mental characteristics of an ECA, optimal for an envisioned application? What will be the added value of using an ECA? Although there have been studies addressing such issues, we are still far from getting a complete picture. This is not only due to the still relatively little experience with applications of ECAs, but also to the diversity in terms and experimental settings used. The lack of a common, established framework makes it di cult to compare ECAs, interpret evaluation results and judge their scope and relevance. In this chapter we propose a common taxonomy of the relevant design and evaluation aspects of ECAs. We refer to recent works to elicit evaluation concepts and discuss measurement issues.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • André, E. and Rist, T. (2000). Presenting Through Performing: On the Use of Multiple Lifelike Characters in Knowledge-Based Presentation Systems. In Proc. of the Second International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, pp. 1–8. New Orleans, Louisiana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bailenson, J. N., Beall, A. C., Blascovich, J., Raimundo, M. and Weisbuch, M., (2001). Intelligent Agents Who Wear Your Face: Users Reactions to the Virtual Self. In De Antonio, A., Aylett, R., Ballin, D., editors, In Proc. of the Third International Workshop Intelligent Virtual Agents, IVA 2001, pp. 86–99, Madrid, Spain, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2190, Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, T. (2003). The Illusion of Life Revisited. In Proc. of the AAMAS03 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters as Individuals, Melbourne, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baylor, A. L. (2003). The Split-Persona E ect with Pedagogical Agents. In Proc. of the AAMAS03 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters as Individuals, Melbourne, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benbasat, I., Dexter, A. and Masulis, P. (1981). An Experimental Study of the Human/ComputerInterface. Communication of the ACM, 24(11): 752–762.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickmore, T. and, Cassell, J. (2001). A Relational Agent: A Model and Implementation of Building User Trust. In Proceedings of the CHI’01. pp. 396–403. Seattle, Washington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buisine, S., Abrilian, S., Rendu, C., and Martin, J.C. (2003). Evaluation of Individual Multimodal Behavior of 2D Embodied Agents in Presentation Tasks, In Proc. of the AAMAS03 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters as Individuals, Melbourne, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassell, J. and Bickmore, T. (2000). External Manifestations of Trust-worthiness in the Interface. Communications of the ACM, 43(12): 50–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cassell, J. Thóorisson, K. R. (1999). The Power of a Nod and a Glance: Envelope vs. Emotional Feedback in Animated Conversational Agents. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 13: 519–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cassell, J. and Vilhjáalmsson, H. (1999). FullyEmbodied Conversational Avatars: Making Communicative Behaviors Autonomous. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 2(1): 45–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cowell, A.J. and Stanney, K.M. (2003). On Manipulating Nonverbal Interaction Style to Increase Anthropomorphic Computer Character Credibility. In Proc. of the AAMAS03 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters as Individuals, Melbourne, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dehn, D. and Van Mulken, S. (2000). The impact of animated interface agents: a review of empirical research. Int. Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 52: 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Rosis, F., Pelachaud, C. and Poggi, I. (to appear). Transcultural believability in embodied agents: A matter of consistent adaptation. In Payr, S. and Trappl, R., editors, Agent Culture: Designing Human-Agent Interaction in a Multicultural World. Laurence Erlbaum Associates, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dryer, D. (1999). Getting personal with computers. Applied Artificial Intelligence. 13: 273–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, P., Hodgson, P., and Prevost, S. (2003). Character User Interfaces for Commercial Applications. In Proc. of the AAMAS03 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters as Individuals, Melbourne, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind. McGraw-Hill, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Höök, K., Persson, P., and Sjöolinder, M. (2000). Evaluating Users Experience of a Character Enhanced Information Space, Journal of AI Communications, 13(3): 195–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isbister, K. and Doyle, P. (2002). Design and Evaluation of Embodied Conversational Agents: A Proposed Taxonomy. In Proc. of the AAMAS02 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Agents: Lets Specify and Compare Them!, Bologna, Italy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isbister, K. and Hayes-Roth, B. (1998). Social Implications of Using Synthetic Characters: An Examination of a Role-Specific Intelligent Agent. KSL-98-01 Stanford, Knowledge Systems Laboratory.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isbister, K., Nakanishi, H., Ishida, T., and Nass, C. (2000). Helper Agent: Designing an Assistant for Human-Human Interaction in a Virtual Meeting Space. In Proceedings of the CHI 2000, pp. 57–64. The Hague, The Netherlands.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isbister, K. and Nass, C. (2000). Consistency of Personality in Interactive Characters: Verbal Cues, Non-Verbal Cues, and User Characteristics. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 53: 251–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Isla, D. and Blumberg, B. (2002). Object Persistence for Synthetic Creatures. In Proc. of AAMAS02, pp. 1356–1363.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, J. and Ohya, J. (1996). The Representation of Agents: Anthropomorphism, Agency, and Intelligence. In Proc. CHI96, pp. 289–290.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koda, T. and Maes, P. (1996). Agents With Faces: The E ects of Personification of Agents. In Proc. of HCI’96, pp. 98–103. London, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larsen, R.J. and Diener, E. (1987). Affect Intensity as an Individual Difference Characteristic: A review. Journal of Research in Personality, 21: 1–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lester, J., Converse, S., Kahler, S., Barlow, S., Stone, B., and Bhogal, R. (1997). The Persona Effect: Affective Impact of Animated Pedagogical Agents. In Proc. of CHI97, pp. 359–366, ACM Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massaro, D.(1998). Perceiving Talking Faces. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • McBreen, H.M., Shade, P., Jack, M.A., and Wyard, P.J. (2000). Experimental Assessment of the Effectiveness of Synthetic Personae for Multi-Modal E-Retail Applications. In Proc. of Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents, pp. 39–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • McBreen, H.M., Anderson, J., and Jack, M. (2001). Evaluating 3D Embodied Conversational Agents in Contrasting VRML Retail Applications. In Proc. of AAMAS01 Workshop on Representing, Annotating, and Evaluating Non-Verbal and Verbal Communicative Acts to Achieve Contextual Embodied Agents, Montreal, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCraae, R. R., and John, O.P. (1992). An Introduction to the Five-Factor Model and its Applications. Journal of Personality, 60: 175–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mori, J., Prendinger, H., and Ishizuka, M. (2003). Evaluation of an Embodied Conversational Agent with Affective Behavior. In Proc. of the AAMAS03 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters as Individuals, Melbourne, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moundridou, M. and Virvou, M. (2002). Evaluating the Persona Effect of an Interface Agent in an Intelligent Tutoring System. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18(3): 253–261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nass, C., Isbister, K., and Lee, E. J. (2000). Truth is Beauty: Researching Embodied Conversational Agents. In Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, J., Churchill, E., editors, Embodied Converastional Agents, pp. 374–401, MIT Press, MA, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nass, C. and Lee, K. M. (2000). Does Computer-Generated Speech Manifest Personality? An Experimental Test of Similarity-Attraction. In Proc. of CHI 2000, pp. 329–336. The Hague, The Netherlands.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Paradiso, A. and ĽAbbate, M.A. (2001). A Model for the Generation and Combination of Emotional Expressions. In Proc. of the AAMAS01 Workshop on Representing, Annotating and Evaluating Non-Verbal and Verbal Communicative Acts to Achieve Contextual Embodied Agents. Montreal, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pelachaud, C., Carofiglio, V., De Carolis, B., de Rosis, F., and Poggi, I. (2002). Embodied Contextual Agent in Information Delivering Application. In Proc. of First International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Bologna, Italy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pelachaud, C. and Poggi, I. (2002). Subtleties of Facial Expressions in Embodied Agents. Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation, 13: 301–312.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Prendinger, H., and Ishizuka, M. (2002). Social Role Awareness in Animated Agents. In Proc. of AAMAS02, pp. 270–277.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prendinger, H. and Ishizuka, M. (2003). Designing and Evaluating Animated Agents as Social Actors. IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems. E86-D(8): 1378–1385.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reeves, B. and Nass, C. (1996). The Media Equation — How People Treat Computers, Television and New Media Like Real People and Places. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Resnick, P.V. and Lammers, H.B. (1985). The Influence of Self-esteem on Cognitive Responses to Machine-Like Versus Human-Like Computer Feedback. The Journal of Social Psychology, 125: 761–769.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rickenberg, R. and Reeves, B. (2000). The Effects of Animated Characters on Anxiety, Task Performance, and Evaluations of User Interfaces. In Proc. of CHI 2000, pp. 49–56. The Hague, The Netherlands.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, J.A. and Mehrabian, A. (1977). Evidence for a Three-Factor Theory of Emotions. Journal of Research in Personality, 11: 273–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanders, G. and Scholtz, J. (2000). Measurement and Evaluation of Embodied Conversational Agents. In Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, J., Churchill, E., editors, Embodied Converastional Agents, MIT Press, pp. 347–373.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sproull, L., Subramani, M., Kiesler, S., Walker, J.H., and Waters, K. (1996). When the Interface is a Face. Human-Computer Interaction, 11: 97–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Mulken, S., André, E., Müller, J. (1998). The Persona Effect: How substantial is it?. In Proc. of HCI 1998, pp. 53–66. Sheffield, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Witkowski, M., Arafa, Y., and De Bruijn, O. (2001). Evaluating User Reaction to Character Agent Mediated Displays Using Eye-Tracking Technology. In Proc. of the Workshop on Information Agents in E-commerce; Agents and Cognition, AISB Convention, York, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xiao, J., Stasko, J., and Catrambone, R. (2002). Embodied Conversational Agents as a UI Paradigm: A Framework for Evaluation. In Proc. of the AAMAS02 Workshop on Embodied Conversational Agents: Lets Specify and Compare Them!, Bologna, Italy.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Zsófia Ruttkay Catherine Pelachaud

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ruttkay, Z., Dormann, C., Noot, H. (2004). Embodied Conversational Agents on a Common Ground. In: Ruttkay, Z., Pelachaud, C. (eds) From Brows to Trust. Human-Computer Interaction Series, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2730-3_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2730-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-2729-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-2730-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics