scholarly journals Virtual Humans for Learning

AI Magazine ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Swartout ◽  
Ron Artstein ◽  
Eric Forbell ◽  
Susan Foutz ◽  
H. Chad Lane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Effects ◽  
Virtual Human ◽  
Virtual Humans ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Real People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Systems

Virtual humans are computer-generated characters designed to look and behave like real people. Studies have shown that virtual humans can mimic many of the social effects that one finds in human-human interactions such as creating rapport, and people respond to virtual humans in ways that are similar to how they respond to real people. We believe that virtual humans represent a new metaphor for interacting with computers, one in which working with a computer becomes much like interacting with a person and this can bring social elements to the interaction that are not easily supported with conventional interfaces. We present two systems that embody these ideas. The first, the Twins are virtual docents in the Museum of Science, Boston, designed to engage visitors and raise their awareness and knowledge of science. The second SimCoach, uses an empathetic virtual human to provide veterans and their families with information about PTSD and depression.

scholarly journals Social Responses to Virtual Humans: The Effect of Human-Like Characteristics

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 7214
Author(s):  
Sung Park ◽  
Richard Catrambone
Keyword(s):  
Social Facilitation ◽  
Virtual Human ◽  
Facial Appearance ◽  
Virtual Humans ◽  
Social Responses ◽  
Human Tutor ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Performance Results ◽  
The Voice

As a virtual human is provided with more human-like characteristics, will it elicit stronger social responses from people? Two experiments were conducted to address these questions. The first experiment investigated whether virtual humans can evoke a social facilitation response and how strong that response is when people are given different cognitive tasks that vary in difficulty. The second experiment investigated whether people apply politeness norms to virtual humans. Participants were tutored either by a human tutor or a virtual human tutor that varied in features and then evaluated the tutor’s performance. Results indicate that virtual humans can produce social facilitation not only with facial appearance but also with voice. In addition, performance in the presence of voice synced facial appearance seems to elicit stronger social facilitation than in the presence of voice only or face only. Similar findings were observed with the politeness norm experiment. Participants who evaluated their tutor directly reported the tutor’s performance more favorably than participants who evaluated their tutor indirectly. This valence toward the voice synced facial appearance had no statistical difference compared to the valence toward the human tutor condition. The results suggest that designers of virtual humans should be mindful about the social nature of virtual humans.

Wealth and preferences for redistribution: The effects of financial assets and home equity in 31 countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 002071522098808
Author(s):  
Liza G Steele
Keyword(s):  
Household Wealth ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Financial Assets ◽  
Unemployment Benefits ◽  
Home Equity ◽  
Income Equality ◽  
Financial Wealth ◽  
Preferences For Redistribution ◽  
The Social

How does wealth affect preferences for redistribution? In general, social scientists have largely neglected to study the social effects of wealth. This neglect was partially due to a dearth of data on household wealth and social outcomes, and also to greater scholarly interest in how wealth has been accumulated rather than the social effects of wealth. While we would expect household wealth to be an important component of attitudes toward inequality and social welfare policies, research in this area is scarce. In this study, the relationship between wealth and preferences for redistribution is examined in cross-national global and comparative perspective using data on 31 countries from the 2009 wave of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the first wave of that study to include measures of wealth. The findings presented compare the effects of two types of wealth—financial assets and home equity—and demonstrate that there are differences in effects by asset type and by redistributive policy in question. Financial wealth is more closely associated with attitudes about income equality, while home equity is more closely associated with attitudes about unemployment benefits. Moreover, while the upper categories of financial wealth have the largest negative effects on support for income equality, it is the middle categories of home equity that are most strongly associated with opposition to unemployment benefits. Effects also differ by country, but not in patterns that theories of comparative welfare states nor political economy would adequately explain.

scholarly journals Environmental Politics in the Himalayas: A Retrospective Overview of People’s Resistance to Protect their Rights Over Natural Resources

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-81
Author(s):  
Narayan Jena ◽  
Swagatika Parida
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Ecological Impact ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Local People ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Colonial Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Primary Materials

This paper attempts to examine the fundamental reasons behind the constant battle of the local people of Uttarakhand over the Himalayan resources since the colonial time. It analyses both the social effects of the deliberate shifting of ownership of natural resources from the local people to government agencies and the ecological impact of dramatic conversion of natural forest into protected areas or reserve forests. Secondly, it questions the validity of such structural changes made by the governments to limit or restrict the local people’s access to the resources of the region. Here, the primary materials for this paper have been derived from the responses of the local people on the government’s shifting and developmental paradigm to substantiate the argument.

scholarly journals Unlocking the Black Box of AI Listening Machines: Assemblages for Art, Technology and Innovation

Artnodes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharath Chandra Ramakrishnan
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Technology And Innovation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Artistic Interventions ◽  
Creative Interventions

The black box of innovation in the realm of connected AI technologies renders not only their technicalities opaque but also, and more importantly, the social effects and relations that constitute their creation and mediation. This presents an opportunity for creative interventions by artists and researchers, to unveil the networked relations that are part of AI technologies, and speculate on their ontological effects. This article presents such an unpacking around an AI listening machine present today in ubiquitous devices like voice assistants and smart speakers, and incorporates computational models of machine audition. By tracing the scientific research, technical expertise, and social relations that led to our cultural adoption of AI listening machines, the article presents a socio-technical assemblage within which these machines operate. At the same time, the article reveals various contexts for artists as well as innovation researchers to engage with the socio-technical complexity of AI listening machines, by sharing some instances of creative and artistic interventions that have attempted to unveil the nature of their assemblages.

scholarly journals The Social Effects of Exergames on Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Metric Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinhui Li ◽  
Kanokkorn Witedwittayanusat ◽  
Luxi Chen ◽  
Yuanyuan Cao ◽  
Shan Qi Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Metric Analysis ◽  
The Social

The life cycle of alternative agricultural research

1995 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly D. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food System ◽  
Agricultural Research ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Agricultural Technologies ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Social

AbstractThe acceptance and utility of alternative agricultural research can be enhanced by better incorporating social sciences and issues and by broadening its scope to the entire food system rather than focusing only on food production. Researchers have made strong contributions in developing and evaluating alternative agricultural technologies, but research attention also is needed to articulate strategies for synthesizing those technologies into coherent strategies, to examine the social effects of different scenarios, and to create better decisionmaking processes for ensuring broad-based knowledgeable participation in the choices among alternative strategies. Research that addresses human needs beyond food and fiber will help build truly alternative and desirable agricultural systems.

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