An empathic virtual dialog agent to improve human-machine interaction

ABSTRACT

Recent research has shown that virtual agents expressing empathic emotions toward users have the potentiality to enhance human-machine interaction. To identify under which circumstances a virtual agent should express empathic emotions, we have analyzed real human-machine dialog situations that have led users to express emotion. The results of this empirical study have been combined with theoretical descriptions of emotions to construct a model of empathic emotions. Based on this model, a module of emotions has been implemented as a plug-in for JSA agents. It determines the empathic emotions (their types and intensity) of such agents in real time. It has been used to develop a demonstrator where users can interact with an empathic dialog agent to obtain information on their emails. An evaluation of this agent has enabled us to both validate the proposed model of empathic emotions and highlight the positive user's perception of the virtual agent.

REFERENCES

• 1: J. Austin. How to do things with words. Oxford University Press, London, 1962.
• 2: C. Bartneck. eMuu - An Embodied Emotional Character for the Ambient Intelligent Home. PhD thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology, 2002.
• 3: Joseph Bates, The role of emotion in believable agents, Communications of the ACM, v.37 n.7, p.122-125, July 1994 [doi>10.1145/176789.176803]
• 4: C. Becker, I. Wachsmuth, H. Prendinger, and M. Ishizuka. Evaluating affective feedback of the 3D agent max in a competitive cards game. In J. Tao, T. Tan, and R. W. Picard, editors, Proceedings of the International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Pékin, Chine, oct 2005. Springer.
• 5: Scott Brave , Clifford Nass , Kevin Hutchinson, Computers that care: investigating the effects of orientation of emotion exhibited by an embodied computer agent, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.62 n.2, p.161-178, February 2005 [doi>10.1016/j.ijhcs.2004.11.002]
• 6: N. Chovil. Social determinants of facial displays. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 15:141--154, 1991.
• 7: Clark Davidson Elliott, The affective reasoner: a process model of emotions in a multi-agent system, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 1992
• 8: FIPA-ACL. http://www.fipa.org/repository/aclspecs.html, 2002.
• 9: N. Frijda, A. Ortony, J. Sonnemans, and G. L. Clore. Emotion: Review of Personality and Social Psychology, chapter The complexity of intensity: Issues concerning the structure of emotion intensity. Sage, 1992.
• 10: J. Gratch and S. Marsella. A domain-independent framework for modeling emotion. Journal of Cognitive Systems Research, 5(4):269--306, 2004.
• 11: J. Hakansson. Exploring the phenomenon of empathy. PhD thesis, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, 2003.
• 12: JADE, http://jade.tilab.com/, 2001.
• 13: W. Johnson, J. Rickel, and J. Lester. Animated pedagogical agents: Face-to-face interaction in interactive learning environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 11:47--78, 2000.
• 14: Jonathan Klein , Youngme Moon , Rosalind W. Picard, This computer responds to user frustration, CHI '99 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [doi>10.1145/632716.632866]
• 15: V. Louis and T. Martinez. Developing Multi-agent Systems with JADE, chapter JADE Semantics Framework, pages 225--246. John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2007.
• 16: Scott W. McQuiggan , James C. Lester, Learning empathy: a data-driven framework for modeling empathetic companion agents, Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems, May 08-12, 2006, Hakodate, Japan [doi>10.1145/1160633.1160806]
• 17: Magalie Ochs , Catherine Pelachaud , David Sadek, An Empathic Rational Dialog Agent, Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction, September 12-14, 2007, Lisbon, Portugal [doi>10.1007/978-3-540-74889-2_30]
• 18: M. Ochs, C. Pelachaud, and D. Sadek. Emotion elicitation in an empathic virtual dialog agent. In Prooceedings of the Second European Cognitive Science Conference (EuroCogSci), 2007.
• 19: A. Ortony, G. Clore, and A. Collins. The cognitive structure of emotions. Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 1988.
• 20: E. Pacherie. L'empathie, chapter L'empathie et ses degrés, pages 149--181. Odile Jacob, 2004.
• 21: A. Paiva, J. Dias, D. Sobral, S. Woods, and L. Hall. Building empathic lifelike characters: the proximity factor. In A. Paiva, R. Aylett, and S. Marsella, editors, Proceedings of International joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), Workshop on Empathic Agents, New York, USA, aug 2004.
• 22: T. Partala and V. Surakka. The effects of affective interventions in human-computer interaction. Interacting with computers, 16:295--309, 2004.
• 23: Rosalind W. Picard , Karen K. Liu, Relative subjective count and assessment of interruptive technologies applied to mobile monitoring of stress, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.65 n.4, p.361-375, April, 2007 [doi>10.1016/j.ijhcs.2006.11.019]
• 24: I. Poggi. Emotions from mind to mind. In A. Paiva, R. Aylett, and S. Marsella, editors, Proceedings of International joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), Workshop on Empathic Agents, New York, USA, aug 2004.
• 25: H. Prendinger and M. Ishizuka. The empathic companion: A character-bayed interface that addresses users' affective states. International Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence, 19:297--285, 2005.
• 26: Helmut Prendinger , Junichiro Mori , Mitsuru Ishizuka, Using human physiology to evaluate subtle expressivity of a virtual quizmaster in a mathematical game, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.62 n.2, p.231-245, February 2005 [doi>10.1016/j.ijhcs.2004.11.009]
• 27: A. S. Rao and M. Georgeff. Modeling rational agents within a BDI-architecture. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR), 1991.
• 28: S. Reilly. Believable Social and Emotional Agents. PhD thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, 1996.
• 29: D. Sadek. Attitudes mentales et interaction rationnelle: vers une théorie formelle de la communication. PhD thesis, Université Rennes I, 1991.
• 30: K. Scherer. Criteria for emotion-antecedent appraisal: A review. In V. Hamilton, G. Bower, and N. Frijda, editors, Cognitive perspectives on emotion and motivation, pages 89--126. Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1988.
• 31: K. Scherer. Emotion. In M. Hewstone and W. Stroebe, editors, Introduction to Social Psychology: A European perspective, pages 151--191. Oxford Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
• 32: E. Tanguy, J. Bryson, and W. P. A dynamic emotion representation model within a facial animation system. Technical report, Department of Computer Science; University of Bath; England, 2005.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence
            Subjects: Intelligent agents

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.0 General
          Subjects: Cognitive simulation
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.4 Model Validation and Analysis
      I.6.5 Model Development

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management, Performance, Theory