Abstract
We describe a series of algorithms which automatically control camera position in a virtual environment while a user is engaged in a simulated face-to-face dialog with a single virtual agent. The common objective of the algorithms is to increase user engagement with the interaction. In our work, we describe three different automated camera control systems that: (1) control the camera’s position based on topic changes in dialog; (2) use sentiment analysis to control the camera-to-agent distance; and (3) adjust the camera’s depth-of-field based on “important” segments of the dialog. Evaluation studies of each method are described. We find that changing camera position based on topic shifts results in significant increases in a self-reported measure of engagement, while the other methods seem to actually decrease user engagement. Interpretations and ramifications of the results are discussed.
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Ring, L., Utami, D., Olafsson, S., Bickmore, T. (2016). Increasing Engagement with Virtual Agents Using Automatic Camera Motion. In: Traum, D., Swartout, W., Khooshabeh, P., Kopp, S., Scherer, S., Leuski, A. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10011. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47665-0_3
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