Papers about Applications

We present a deployed, conversational dialog system that assists users in finding computers based on their usage patterns and constraints on specifications. We discuss findings from a market survey and two user studies. We compared our system to a directed dialog system and a menu driven navigation system. We found that the conversational interface reduced the average number of clicks by 63% and the average interaction time by 33% over a menu driven search system.... Read more

This paper unfolds the various aspects of ongoing evolution of Intelligent User Interfaces. It provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the field. Read more

We describe the Virtual Standardized Patient (VSP) application, having a computerized virtual person who interacts with medical practitioners in much the same way as actors hired to teach and evaluate patient assessment, diagnosis, and interviewing skills. The VSP integrates technologies from two successful research projects conducted at Research Triangle Institute. AVATALK provides natural language processing, emotion and behavior modeling, and composite facial expression and lip-shape modeling for a natural patient-practitioner dialog. Trauma Patient Simulator provides... Read more

In this article I describe some of the features of human-human conversation that are being implemented in this new genre of embodied conversational agents. Then I describe an embodied conversational agent that is based on these features. I argue that, because conversation is such a primary skill for humans, and such an early-learned skill (practiced, in fact, between infants and mothers who take turns cooing and burbling at one another), and because the body is... Read more

The last decade has witnessed the emergence of a new breed of human computer interfaces that combines several human language technologies to enable humans to converse with computers using spoken dialogue for information access, creation, and processing. In this paper, we introduce the nature of these conversational interfaces, and describe the underlying human language technologies on which they are based. After summarizing some of the recent progress in this area around the world, we discuss... Read more

In this paper, we argue for embodied conversational characters as the logical extension of the metaphor of human – computer interaction as a conversation. We argue that the only way to fully model the richness of human face-to-face communication is to rely on conversational analysis that describes sets of conversational behaviors as fulfilling conversational functions, both interactional and propositional. We demonstrate how to implement this approach in Rea, an embodied conversational agent that is capable... Read more

In this paper we describe the computational and architectural requirements for systems which support real-time multimodal interaction with an embodied conversational character. We argue that the three primary design drivers are real-time multithreaded entrainment, processing of both interactional and propositional information, and an approach based on a functional understanding of human face-to-face conversation. We then present an architecture which meets these requirements and an initial conversational character that we have developed who is capable of... Read more

In the paper "Animated Conversation: Rule-Based Generation of Facial Expression, Gesture and Spoken Intonation for Multiple Conversational Agents", we describe an implemented system which automatically generates and animates conversations between multiple human-like agents with appropriate and synchronized speech, intonation, facial expressions, and hand gestures. Conversations are created by a dialogue planner that produces the text as well as the intonation of the utterances. The speaker/listener relationship, the text, and the intonation in turn drive facial... Read more

The Turing Test was proposed by Alan Turing in 1950; he called it the Imitation Game. In 1991 Hugh Loebner started the Loebner prize competition, offering a 100,000 prize to the author of the first computer program to pass an unrestricted Turing test. Annual competitions are held each year with smaller prizes for the best program on a restricted Turing test. This paper describes the development of one such Turing System, including the technical design... Read more

This paper was presented at The First International Conference on Cyberspace held in May 1990 at the University of Texas at Austin. It was published in Cyberspace: First Steps, Michael Benedikt (ed.), 1991, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Lucasfilm's Habitat was created by Lucasfilm Games, a division of LucasArts Entertainment Company, in association with Quantum Computer Services, Inc. It was one of the first attempts to create a very large scale commercial multi-user virtual environment. The Habitat... Read more