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2nd WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
Embodied conversational agents - let's specify and evaluate them!
http://www.vhml.org/workshops/AAMAS
16 July, 2002
Bologna, Italy
in conjunction with
The First International Joint Conference on
Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent Systems
http://lia.deis.unibo.it:8080/confs/aamas2002/
In recent years an increasing number of R&D projects have taken an
interest in the deployment of so-called embodied conversational
characters as avatars representing users in virtual meeting spaces, as
part of the user-interface or, in some cases, even as the ultimate
interface metaphor to information and computer-based services in a
diverse range of potential application areas, including E-learning,
E-Commerce, entertainment, and multi-user telecommunication. Across
applications and projects the audio-visual appearance of characters
vary widely in the amount of embodiment (e.g. face-only / full-body /
avatar), the style of rendering (e.g., cartoon / photo realistic, 2D /
3D, synthetic / natural voice), and the sophistication of animation
(e.g., still images / cartoon / realistic). There is also a great
variation in terms of a character's internal or "mental" abilities and
skills - among other things, a character's ability to engage in a
conversation with humans or possibly other synthetic creatures, and
whether or not it possesses further human-like qualities, such as
personality and emotions.
Moreover while both presentational and internal aspects of a character
may vary widely from one project to another, a central issue that must
be addressed by all of them concerns the language and representation
format which, metaphorically speaking, bridges between a character's
mind and body. Technically speaking, such a language is part of the
interface between modules which are responsible for determining an
agent's behaviour on the one hand, and player technologies which are
responsible for animation rendering and speech synthesis. Several
attempts have been made to provide a standard for mark-up languages
for characters. The VHML [www.vhml.org/] initiative deserves
mentioning here as it subsumes some of the earlier attempts. When
looking at ongoing character projects both in academia and industries,
however, each project seems to define its own special-purpose
languages and representation formats to specify expressive character
behaviour. Unfortunately, proprietary solutions do little to foster
synergies of results among research groups and may severely delay a
broader up-take and exploitation of research results.
Agreeing on standard formats is important for sharing work, but
another crucial component is evaluation. We need to be able to
understand how well the goals of a system are being achieved, both in
terms of the architecture, e.g. effectiveness of special-purpose
languages, and in terms of application, e.g. how well an agent
accomplishes a certain interaction with a human. By comparing
results, we can make informed choices about what to incorporate,
extend and rethink as a community of researchers. However, evaluation
and comparison have been very hard because this is a relatively new
field that both lacks evaluation tools, an established set of
evaluation criteria, and empirical tests carried out to learn about
the benefits of embodied agents on different aspects such as
entertainment, mental load, system efficiency. To further complicate
matters, the field employs a great diversity of paradigms, application
domains and techniques.
The purpose of this full-day workshop is to bring together researchers
and developers of embodied conversational characters to exchange ideas
and experiences on:
1. representation formats and specification languages for expressive
behaviour:
We are especially interested in the dependency between
representation formats on the one hand, and the chosen theories of
personality, affect, as well as verbal and non-verbal communication
on the other hand. Last but not least we want to gain insight in
how these disparate approaches and corresponding technologies are
welded together. During the workshop we will identify and formulate
requirements that a potential standard should provide. A further
goal in time is to turn this specification into an international
standard so that the whole community of researchers and developers
of embodied conversational characters may benefit from it.
2. the basis for evaluation of embodied agent prototypes:
We would like to concentrate on the added value of the use of
embodied agents. After having seen many embodied agents in the past
years, this time we wish to ask questions like: What are the
characteristics and qualities of a specific agent? Are they really
useful for the given application? What are the dimensions to
evaluate a synthetic agent? What is the relationship of 'learning
factors', 'pleasure factors' and 'efficiency factors'? What should
a synthetic agent be like, depending on the intended usage and
users?
MAJOR TOPICS:
1. representation formats and specification languages for expressive
behaviour
Issues to be addressed:
- requirements for representation formats and a specification /
mark-up language;
- description, semantics and extensibility of representation
formats and languages in a system;
- practicality of the representation formats / specification
language;
- evaluation of a particular format / language - what are the
useful features; what are the limitations; in how far are
original requirements met ?
2. Evaluation frameworks, methods and results
Issues to be addressed:
- Identification of evaluation criteria for different aspects
(engagement, entertainment, efficiency in learning and usage) of
embodied agents.
- Methodology to evaluate embodied agents.
- Empirical results on agent evaluation (e.g. usage of different
modalities, visual speech, affect and personality, communicative
functions, discourse strategy).
- Design guide-lines for embodied agents for application types and
user groups.
- `Benchmarks' to compare and evaluate embodied agents (possibly
different sets for different application domains.)
WORKSHOP FORMAT:
The workshop will feature a mix of presentations, demos, and
discussion rounds. The presentations could cover one of the several
themes of the workshop and should be oriented toward:
- description of the representation formats and a specification /
mark-up language with a brief description of application area,
including the type of agent(s) to be achieved and the research
goals; The motivation and the practicality of the representation
formats / specification language should also be specified as well as
its evaluation.
- Evaluation of complete embodied agent systems or of design decisions
for agent specifications e.g. on using certain modalities for
certain communicative functions. Both conclusions on case studies
and proposition of methodological frameworks or benchmarks are
welcome.
- Pointers, such as on-line demos or videos, to actual working
examples that demonstrate usage and practicality of their
representation formats / specification language.
- Pointers to actual working examples that demonstrate, for example,
the believability and engagement of the agents, as well as its use
in a system, an application...
- Practical knowledge from evaluation of commercial
systems. Discussing the link between the specification language and
actual outcomes of the system.
SUBMISSION FORMAT AND PROCEDURE
In case of space limitations, priority will be given to presenters and
authors. Paper length should be 4-8 pages long (using 11pt, single
space, all margins of 2cm) and should be accompanied as much as
possible with an animation or URL's showing multimedia content (actual
systems, screenshots, animations, etc) describing the work
presented. Every paper submitted will be reviewed by at least 2
reviewers from the program committee.
Submissions should be emailed to Catherine Pelachaud
([log in to unmask]) in PS or PDF format by April 10th, 2002. If
email is not possible, please sent two copies of your paper to
(though, email is much preferred):
Catherine Pelachaud
University of Rome "La Sapienza"
Computer Science Department
via Salaria, 113
00198 Rome Italy
Note: Workshop participants will be required to register for the First
International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent
Systems main conference.
http://lia.deis.unibo.it:8080/confs/aamas2002/
IMPORTANT DATES
April 10 - Deadline for paper Submission
April 30 - Notification of Acceptance / Rejection
May 27 - Deadline for camera-ready paper
July 16 - Workshop date
Post-workshop activities including publication of the workshop outcome
in an appropriate channel.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Andrew Marriott, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
Catherine Pelachaud, University of Rome, Italy
Thomas Rist, DFKI, Germany
Zsofia Ruttkay, CWI, The Netherlands
Hannes Vilhjalmsson, MIT Media Lab, USA
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Elisabeth Andre (G)
Norman Badler (USA)
Simon Beard (AU)
Nadja de Carolis (I)
Kees van Deemter (UK)
David House (S)
Katherine Isbister (USA)
Mitsuru Ishizuka (J)
Khristina Höök, (S)
Emiel Krahmer (NL)
Fabio Lavagetto (I)
Brigitte Krenn (AT)
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann (CH)
Stacy Marsella (USA)
Shigeo Morishima (J)
Sharon Oviatt (USA)
Ana Paiva (P)
Helmut Prendinger (J)
Jeff Rickel (USA)
Candace Sidner (USA)
Alistair Suttcliffe (GB)
Daniel Thalmann (CH)
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