Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Review of the Development of Embodied Presentation Agents and Their Application Fields

  • Chapter
Life-Like Characters

Part of the book series: Cognitive Technologies ((COGTECH))

Summary

Embodied conversational agents provide a promising option for presenting information to users. This contribution revisits a number of past and ongoing systems with animated characters that have been developed at DFKI. While in all systems the purpose of using characters is to convey information to the user, there are significant variations in the style of presentation and the assumed conversational setting. The spectrum of systems includes systems that feature a single, TV-style presentation agent, dialogue systems, as well as systems that deploy multiple interactive characters. We also provide a technical view of these systems and sketch the underlying system architectures of each sample system.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
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

  1. André, E., Binsted, K., Tanaka-Ishii, K., Luke, S., Herzog, G., Rist, T.: Three RoboCup simulation league commentator systems. AI Magazine 21 (1): 57–65 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  2. André, E., Herzog, G., Rist, T.: Generating multimedia presentations for RoboCup soccer games. In: RoboCup ’97: Robot Soccer World Cup I, ed Kitano (Springer, New York 1997 ) pp 200–215

    Google Scholar 

  3. André, E., Rist, T.: Coping with temporal constraints in multimedia presentation planning. In: Proceedings of the AAAI ’96 (AAAI Press/The MIT Press, Menlo Park, Cambridge, London 1996 ) pp 142–147

    Google Scholar 

  4. André, E., Rist, T., Müller, J.: Employing AI methods to control the behavior of animated interface agents. Applied Artificial Intelligence 13: 415–448 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. André, E., Rist, T., van Mulken, S., Klesen, M., Baldes, S.: The automated design of believable dialogues for animated presentation teams. In: Embodied Conversational Agents, ed Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., Churchill, E. ( The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 2000 ) pp 220–255

    Google Scholar 

  6. Binsted, K., Luke, S.: Character design for soccer commentary. In: RoboCup-98: Robot Soccer World Cup II, ed Asada, M., Kitano, H. ( Springer, New York 1999 ) pp 22–33

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Blumberg, B., Tomlinson, B., Downie, M.: Multiple conceptions of character-based interactive installations. Computer Graphics International 2001 (2001) pp 5–11

    Google Scholar 

  8. Cassell, J., Bickmore, T., Camphell, L., Vilhjalmsson, H., Yan, H.: The human conversation as a system framework: Designing embodied conversational agents. In: Embodied Conversational Agents, ed Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., Churchill, E. ( The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 2000 ) pp 29–63

    Google Scholar 

  9. Cassell, J., Pelachaud, C., Badler, N., Steedman, M., Achorn, B., Becket, T., Douville, B., Prevost, S., Stone, M.: Animated conversation: Rule-based generation of facial expression, gesture & spoken intonation for multiple conversational agents. Computer Graphics 28: 413–420 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Cavazza, M., Charles, F.: Interacting with virtual characters in interactive storytelling. In: Proceedings of AAMAS’02 (2002) pp 318–325

    Google Scholar 

  11. Cohen, M.M., Beskow, J., Massaro, D.W.: Recent developments in facial animation: An inside view. In: Proceedings of Auditory-Visual Speech Processing 98, Sydney, Australia (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gebhard, P.: Enhancing embodied intelligent agents with affective user modelling. In: Proceedings of UM2001, Doctoral Consortium summary ( Springer, Berlin 2001 )

    Google Scholar 

  13. Hayes-Roth, B., van Gent, R., Huber, D.: Acting in character. Creating personalities for synthetic actors, ed Trappl, R., Petta, P. ( Springer, New York 1997 ) pp 92–112

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Höök, K., Persson, P., Sjölinder, M.: Evaluating users’ experience of a character-enhanced Information Space. AI Communications 13 (3): 195–212 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Isbister, K., Nakanishi, H., Ishida, T., Nass, C.: Helper agent: Designing an assistant for human-human interaction in a virtual meeting space. In: Proceedings of CHI 2000 ( ACM Press, New York 2000 ) pp 57–64

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ishizuka, M., Tsutsui, T., Saeyor, S., Dohi, H., Zong, Y., Prendinger, H.: MPML: A multimodal presentation markup language with character control functions. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Achieving Human-like Behavior in Interactive Animated Agents, held in conj. with AAMAS’02 (2002) pp 50–54

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kipp, M.: Anvil — a generic annotation tool for multimodal dialogue. In: Proceedings of Eurospeech’01 (2001) pp 1367–1370

    Google Scholar 

  18. Kipp, M.: From human gesture to synthetic action. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Multimodal Communication and Context in Embodied Agents, held in conj. with the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents (2001) pp 9–14

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kitano, H., Asada, M., Kuniyoshi, Y., Noda, I., Osawa, E., Matsubara, H.: RoboCup: A challenging problem for AI. AI Magazine 18 (1): 73–85 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Klesen, M., Szatkowski, J., Lehmann, N.: A dramatised actant model for interactive improvisational plays. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Intelligent Virtual Agents Workshop (IVA) ( Springer, New York 2001 ) pp 181–194

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Kurlander, D., Skelly, T., Salesin, D.: Comic chat. In: Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’96 (1996) pp 225–236

    Google Scholar 

  22. Laurel, B.: Computers as Theater ( Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA 1993 )

    Google Scholar 

  23. Lester, J, Voerman, J.L., Towns, S.G., Callaway, C.B.: Deictic believability: Coordinated gesture, locomotion, and speech in lifelike pedagogical agents. Applied Artificial Intelligence 13: 383–414 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Machado, I., Paiva, A., Prada, R.: Is the wolf angry or… just hungry? In: Proceedings of Autonomous Agents ( ACM Press, New York 2001 ), pp 370–376

    Google Scholar 

  25. Maes, P., Darreil, T., Blumberg, B., Pentland, A.: The ALIVE system: Wireless, full-body interaction with autonomous agents. In: ACM Special Issue on Multimedia and Multisensory Virtual Worlds (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Marsella, S.C., Johnson, W.L., LaBore, C.: Interactive pedagogical drama. In: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents ( ACM Press, New York 2000 ) pp 301–308

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Mateas, M.: An Oz-centric review of interactive drama and believable agents. Technical Report CMU-CS-97-156, School of CS, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Mateas, M., Stern, A.: Towards integrating plot and character for interactive drama. In: Working Notes of the Social Intelligent Agents: The Human in the Loop Symposium ( AAAI Press, New York 2000 )

    Google Scholar 

  29. Matsubara, H., Prank, I., Tanaka-Ishii, K., Nöda, I., Nakashima, H., Hasida, K.: Character design for soccer commentary. In: RoboCup-98: Robot Soccer World Cup II, ed Asada, M., Kitano, H. ( Springer, New York 1999 ) pp 34–49

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. Nitta, K., Hasegawa, O., Akiba, T., Kamishima, T., Kurita, T., Hayamizu, S., Itoh, K., Ishizuka, M., Dohi, H., Okamura, M.: An experimental multimodal disputation system. In: Proceedings of the IJCAI ’97 Workshop on Intelligent Multimodal Systems (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Noma, T., Badler, N.: A virtual human presenter. In: Proceedings of the IJCAI ’97 Workshop on Animated Interface Agents: Making them Intelligent (1997) pp 45–51

    Google Scholar 

  32. Pelachaud, C., Carofiglio, V., De Carolis, B., de Rosis, F., Poggi, I.: Embodied contextual agent in information delivering application. In: Proceedings of AAMAS’02 ( ACM Press, New York 2002 ) pp 758–765

    Google Scholar 

  33. Perlin, K., Goldberg, A.: Improv: A system for scripting interactive actors in virtual worlds. Computer Graphics 30: 205–216 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Prendinger, H., Ishizuka, M.: Social role awareness in animated agents. In: Proceedings 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents-01) ( ACM Press, New York 2001 ) pp 270–277

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  35. Rich, C., Sidner, C.L., Lesh, N.: COLLAGEN: Applying collaborative discourse theory to human-computer interaction. AI Magazine 22 (4): 15–25 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Rickel, J., Johnson, W.L.: Virtual humans for team training in virtual reality. In: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education ( IOS Press, Amsterdam 1999 ) pp 578–585

    Google Scholar 

  37. Rist, T., André, E., Baldes, S.: A flexible platform for building applications with life-like characters. In: Proceedings of IUI’03 ( ACM Press, New York 2003 ) pp 158–165

    Google Scholar 

  38. Rist, T., André, E., Müller, J.: Adding animated presentation agents to the interface. Proceedings of IUI 97 ( ACM Press, New York 1997 ) pp 79–86

    Google Scholar 

  39. Rist, T., Schmitt, M.: Applying socio-psychological concepts of cognitive consistency to negotiation dialog scenarios with embodied conversational characters. Proceedings of AISB’02 Symposium on Animated Expressive Characters for Social Interactions (2002) pp 79–84 (Extended version submitted for publication in 2003 )

    Google Scholar 

  40. Scheflen, A.E.: The significance of posture in communication systems. Psychiatry 26: 316–331 (1964)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Sgouros, N.: Dynamic generation, management and resolution of interactive plots. Artificial Intelligence 107(l):29–62 (1999)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  42. Smith, M.A., Farnham, S., Drucker, S.M.: The social life of small graphical chat spaces In: Proceedings of CHP’2000 (2000) pp 462–469

    Google Scholar 

  43. Swartout, W., Hill, R., Gratch, J., Johnson, W.L., Kyriakakis, C., LaBore, C., Lindheim, R., Marsella, S., Miraglia, D., Moore, B., Morie, J., Rickel, J., Thiébaux, M., Tuch, L., Whitney, R., Douglas, J.: Toward the Holodeck: Integrating graphics, sound, character and story. In: Proceedings 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents-01) ( ACM Press, New York 2001 ) pp 409–416

    Google Scholar 

  44. Thalmann, N.M., Kalra, P.: The simulation of a virtual TV presenter. In: Computer graphics and applications ( World Scientific, Singapore 1995 ) pp 9–21

    Google Scholar 

  45. Traum, D., Rickel, J.: Embodied agents for multi-party dialogue in immersive virtual worlds. In: Proc of AAMAS’02 ( ACM Press, New York 2002 ) pp 766–733

    Google Scholar 

  46. Vilhjalmsson, H., Cassell, J.: BodyChat: Autonomous communicative behaviors in avatars. In: Proceedings of Autonomous Agents’98 (1998) pp 269–276

    Google Scholar 

  47. Wahlster, W., Reithinger, N., Blocher, A.: SmartKom: Multimodal communication with a life-like character. In: Proceedings of EUROSPEECH’01 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Walker, M.A., Cahn, J.E., Whittacker, S.J.: Improvising linguistic style: Social and affective bases for agent personality. In: Proceedings First International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents’97) ( ACM Press, New York 1997 ) pp 10–17

    Google Scholar 

  49. Weyhrauch, P.: Guiding interactive drama. PhD thesis (Carnegie Mellon University 1997 )

    Google Scholar 

  50. Yabe, J., Takahashi, S., Shibayama, E.: Automatic animation of discussions in usenet. In: Proceedings of Advanced Visual Interfaces 2000 (2002) pp 84–91

    Google Scholar 

  51. Young, M.: The cooperative contract in interactive entertainment. In: Socially Intelligent Agents: Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots, ed Dautenhahn, K., Bond, A.H., Canamero, L., Edmonds, B. ( Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht 2002 ) pp 229–234

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. DFKI GmbH, Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, D-66123, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Thomas Rist, Stephan Baldes, Patrick Gebhard, Martin Klesen, Michael Kipp, Peter Rist & Markus Schmitt

  2. Augsburg University, Eichleitnerstr. 30, D-86135, Augsburg, Germany

    Elisabeth André

Authors
  1. Thomas Rist
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elisabeth André
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Stephan Baldes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Patrick Gebhard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Martin Klesen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Michael Kipp
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Peter Rist
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Markus Schmitt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-8656, Tokyo, Japan

    Helmut Prendinger  & Mitsuru Ishizuka  & 

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Rist, T. et al. (2004). A Review of the Development of Embodied Presentation Agents and Their Application Fields. In: Prendinger, H., Ishizuka, M. (eds) Life-Like Characters. Cognitive Technologies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08373-4_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08373-4_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-05655-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-08373-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation