Papers about Applications

We describe work done at three sites on designing conversational agents capable of incremental processing. We focus on the ‘middleware’ layer in these systems, which takes care of passing around and maintaining incremental information between the modules of such agents. All implementations are based on the abstract model of incremental dialogue processing proposed by Schlangen and Skantze (2009), and the paper shows what different instantiations of the model can look like given specific requirements and... Read more

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) are computer-animated characters that simulate face-to-face conversation with patients. These agents can be programmed with best practices in human-human health communication and used for automated health education and behavior change counseling interventions. Evidence is presentedfrom two ongoing clinical trials demonstrating that patients at different levels of health literacy find these agents acceptable and easy to use for automated health communication interventions. Innovative computer interface systems can be used to ensure that... Read more

Virtual communities such as Second Life and Entropia Universe are quickly becoming the next frontier of cybercrime. With GDPs of virtual economies of persistent worlds approaching billions of dollars it is necessary to develop tools for protection of virtual environments similar to those utilized to secure real world’s infrastructure, such as biometrics security systems. The first step in the development of such security methodologies is wide availability of datasets necessary for training and... Read more

This report documents the work done for the Technology Strategy Board feasibility study Applying Techniques from Intelligent Robotics to Autonomous Avatars in Virtual Worlds. At a high level this project can be seen as taking theories and technologies developed for building intelligent robots that interact with humans and their surroundings [5, 16] and investigating how they operate in Second Life (SL).The following section describes the background to the project in more detail, then subsequent sections detail the work... Read more

Unlike computer games where Non-Player-Character avatars are common, in most virtual worlds they are the exception. Deploying an embodied AI into a virtual world offers a unique opportunity to evaluate embodied AIs, and to develop them within an environment where human and computer are on almost equal terms. This paper presents an architecture being used for the deployment of chatbot driven avatars within the Second Life virtual world, looks at the challenges of deploying an... Read more

The notion that a computer can decode brain signals to infer the intentions of a human and then enact those intentions directly through a machine is becoming a realistic technical possibility. These types of devices are known as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The evolution of these neuroprosthetic technologies could have significant implications for patients with motor disabilities by enhancing their ability to interact and communicate with their environment. The cortical physiology most investigated and used for... Read more

Facial animation is referred to all those systems performing the speech synchronization with an animated face model. This kind of systems are called "Talking Head" or "Talking Face". In this paper a Talking Head oriented to the creation of a Chatbot is presented. It requires an input query and an answer is generated in form of text. The answer is transduced into a facial animation using a 3D face model whose lips movements are... Read more

Basilica is an event-driven software architecture for creating conversational agents as a collection of reusable components. Software engineers and computer scientists can use this general architecture to create increasingly sophisticated conversational agents. We have developed agents based on Basilica that have been used in various application scenarios and foresee that agents build on Basilica can cater to a wider variety of interactive situations as we continue to add functionality to our architecture. Read more

Technology interfaces can improve human-machine interaction when they learn to adapt to users in social settings. From cars with voice control, to instructable robots that help with housework, to embodied characters that take website requests, technology is increasingly invading our daily lives and new paradigms are emerging to interact with it. Machines are no longer viewed as complicated yet dumb tools, but rather as smart companions that support task management and relieve us of tedious operation... Read more

The incorporation of games and virtual worlds into the workplace is happening more and more often. One analyst predicts that 80 percent of information workers will have an avatar at home or work by 2011. Why would a company ask its employees to create avatars for themselves? In this paper, the authors explain why avatars and the virtual environments they inhabit are so important to the future of work and demonstrate how engaging employees through... Read more