Related papers: FVA: Modeling Perceived Friendliness of Virtual Ag…
We present a novel, real-time algorithm, EVA, for generating virtual agents with various perceived emotions. Our approach is based on using Expressive Features of gaze and gait to convey emotions corresponding to happy, sad, angry, or…
In this paper, we analyze the performance of an agent developed according to a well-accepted appraisal theory of human emotion with respect to how it modulates play in the context of a social dilemma. We ask if the agent will be capable of…
Immersive rooms are increasingly popular augmented reality systems that support multi-agent interactions within a virtual world. However, despite extensive content creation and technological developments, insights about perceptually-driven…
The rapid development of virtual reality technology has increased its availability and, consequently, increased the number of its possible applications. The interest in the new medium has grown due to the entertainment industry (games, VR…
Physiological sensors are gaining the attention of manufacturers and users. As denoted by devices such as smartwatches or the newly released Kinect 2 -- which can covertly measure heartbeats -- or by the popularity of smartphone apps that…
Animating an avatar that reflects a user's action in the VR world enables natural interactions with the virtual environment. It has the potential to allow remote users to communicate and collaborate in a way as if they met in person.…
Using social robots and virtual agents (VAs) as interfaces for health monitoring systems for older adults offers the possibility of more engaging interactions that can support long-term health and well-being. While robots are characterized…
We present PACE, a novel method for modifying motion-captured virtual agents to interact with and move throughout dense, cluttered 3D scenes. Our approach changes a given motion sequence of a virtual agent as needed to adjust to the…
Artificial intelligence systems increasingly involve continual learning to enable flexibility in general situations that are not encountered during system training. Human interaction with autonomous systems is broadly studied, but research…
This study investigates how different virtual agent (VA) behaviors influence subjects' perceptions and group decision-making. Participants carried out experimental group discussions with a VA exhibiting varying levels of engagement and…
Most AI agents remain confined to an instrumental "command-execution" model, resulting in unequal, one-sided interactions. While recent works attempt to build relationships through hidden memory backends, these invisible processes often…
The use of virtual agents in social coaching has increased rapidly in the last decade. In order to train the user in different situations than can occur in real life, the virtual agent should be able to express different social attitudes.…
This paper presents a study of the dynamic coupling between a user and a virtual character during body interaction. Coupling is directly linked with other dimensions, such as co-presence, engagement, and believability, and was measured in…
With the advent of generative AI and large language models, embodied conversational agents are becoming synonymous with online interactions. These agents possess vast amounts of knowledge but suffer from exhibiting limited emotional…
This paper introduces a new model to generate rhythmically relevant non-verbal facial behaviors for virtual agents while they speak. The model demonstrates perceived performance comparable to behaviors directly extracted from the data and…
Communication robots often need to initiate conversations with people in public spaces. At the same time, such robots must not disturb pedestrians. To handle these two requirements, an agent needs to estimate the communication desires of…
In this study, our goal is to create interactive avatar agents that can autonomously plan and animate nuanced facial movements realistically, from both visual and behavioral perspectives. Given high-level inputs about the environment and…
A virtual embodiment can benefit conversational agents, but it is unclear how their personalities and non-verbal behavior influence the User Experience and Social Presence in Augmented Reality (AR). We asked 30 users to converse with a…
In this paper, we introduce the Generalist Virtual Agent (GVA), an autonomous entity engineered to function across diverse digital platforms and environments, assisting users by executing a variety of tasks. This survey delves into the…
Photorealistic avatars are human avatars that look, move, and talk like real people. The performance of photorealistic avatars has significantly improved recently based on objective metrics such as PSNR, SSIM, LPIPS, FID, and FVD. However,…