Related papers: Developing Enhanced Conversational Agents for Soci…

We present an architecture for integrating real-time, multimodal input into a computational agent's contextual model. Using a human-avatar interaction in a virtual world, we treat aligned gesture and speech as an ensemble where content may…

One of the main goals of robotics and intelligent agent research is to enable natural communication with humans in physically situated settings. While recent work has focused on verbal modes such as language and speech, non-verbal…

Young people's mental well-being is a global concern, with peer support playing a key role in daily emotional regulation. Conversational agents are increasingly viewed as promising tools for delivering accessible, personalised peer support,…

Conversational agents (CAs) are increasingly embedded in daily life, yet their ability to navigate user emotions efficiently is still evolving. This study investigates how users with varying traits -- gender, personality, and cultural…

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…

In this chapter, we provide a review of conversational agents (CAs), discussing chatbots, intended for casual conversation with a user, as well as task-oriented agents that generally engage in discussions intended to reach one or several…

In this paper, we propose an end-to-end sentiment-aware conversational agent based on two models: a reply sentiment prediction model, which leverages the context of the dialogue to predict an appropriate sentiment for the agent to express…

Negotiation is a complex social interaction that encapsulates emotional encounters in human decision-making. Virtual agents that can negotiate with humans are useful in pedagogy and conversational AI. To advance the development of such…

Scientists have traditionally limited the mechanisms of social cognition to one brain, but recent approaches claim that interaction also realizes cognitive work. Experiments under constrained virtual settings revealed that interaction…

Human intelligence's adaptability is remarkable, allowing us to adjust to new tasks and multi-modal environments swiftly. This skill is evident from a young age as we acquire new abilities and solve problems by imitating others or following…

This paper focuses on enhancing human-agent communication by integrating spatial context into virtual agents' non-verbal behaviors, specifically gestures. Recent advances in co-speech gesture generation have primarily utilized data-driven…

Embodied artificial intelligence (Embodied AI) plays a pivotal role in the application of advanced technologies in the intelligent era, where AI systems are integrated with physical bodies that enable them to perceive, reason, and interact…

Conversational agents are increasingly used as support tools along mental therapeutic pathways with significant societal impacts. In particular, empathy is a key non-functional requirement in therapeutic contexts, yet current chatbot…

While end-to-end neural conversation models have led to promising advances in reducing hand-crafted features and errors induced by the traditional complex system architecture, they typically require an enormous amount of data due to the…

In a Human-Computer Interaction context, we aim to elaborate an adaptive and generic interaction model in two different use cases: Embodied Conversational Agents and Creative Musical Agents for musical improvisation. To reach this goal,…

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.…

It may be difficult for some individuals to open up and share their thoughts and feelings in front of a mental health expert. For those who are more at ease with a virtual agent, conversational agents can serve as an intermediate step in…

Most popular goal-oriented dialogue agents are capable of understanding the conversational context. However, with the surge of virtual assistants with screen, the next generation of agents are required to also understand screen context in…

My research centers on the development of context-adaptive AI systems to improve end-user adoption through the integration of technical methods. I deploy these AI systems across various interaction modalities, including user interfaces and…

Conversational agents are increasingly expected to adapt across contexts and evolve their personalities through interactions, yet most remain static once configured. We present an exploratory study of how user expectations form and evolve…