Informatisches Kolloquium WiSe 2002/2003

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth André
Universität Augsburg

From Simulated Dialogues to Interactive Performances

Lifelike characters, or animated agents, provide a promising option for interface development as they allow us to draw on communication and interaction styles with which humans are already familiar. In my talk, I will revisit some of our past and ongoing projects in order to motivate an evolution of character- based presentation systems. This evolution starts from systems in which a character presents information content in the style of a TV-presenter. It moves on with the introduction of presentation teams that convey information to the user by performing role plays. In order to explore new forms of active user involvement during a presentation, the next step may lead to systems that convey information in the style of interactive performances. From a technical point of view, this evaluation is mirrored in different approaches to determine the behavior of the employed characters. By means of concrete applications, I will demonstrate that a central planning component for automated agent scripting is not always a good choice, especially not in the case of interactive performances where the user may take on an active role as well.