scholarly journals Exposure to robotic virtual agent affects adoption of intentional stance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Parenti ◽  
Serena Marchesi ◽  
Marwen Belkaid ◽  
Agnieszka Wykowska
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Virtual Agent ◽  
Virtual Character ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Behavioral Features ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Virtual Interaction

Understanding how and when humans attribute intentionality to artificial agents is a key issue in contemporary human and technological sciences. This paper addresses the question of whether adopting intentional stance can be modulated by exposure to a 3D animated robot character, and whether this depends on the human-likeness of the character's behavior. We report three experiments investigating how appearance and behavioral features of a virtual character affect humans’ attribution of intentionality toward artificial social agents. The results show that adoption of intentional stance can be modulated depending on participants' expectations about the agent. This study brings attention to specific features of virtual agents and insights for further work in the field of virtual interaction.

scholarly journals A Pragmatic Approach to the Intentional Stance Semantic, Empirical and Ethical Considerations for the Design of Artificial Agents

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guglielmo Papagni ◽  
Sabine Koeszegi
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Social Goal ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Ethical Considerations

AbstractArtificial agents are progressively becoming more present in everyday-life situations and more sophisticated in their interaction affordances. In some specific cases, like Google Duplex, GPT-3 bots or Deep Mind’s AlphaGo Zero, their capabilities reach or exceed human levels. The use contexts of everyday life necessitate making such agents understandable by laypeople. At the same time, displaying human levels of social behavior has kindled the debate over the adoption of Dennett’s ‘intentional stance’. By means of a comparative analysis of the literature on robots and virtual agents, we defend the thesis that approaching these artificial agents ‘as if’ they had intentions and forms of social, goal-oriented rationality is the only way to deal with their complexity on a daily base. Specifically, we claim that this is the only viable strategy for non-expert users to understand, predict and perhaps learn from artificial agents’ behavior in everyday social contexts. Furthermore, we argue that as long as agents are transparent about their design principles and functionality, attributing intentions to their actions is not only essential, but also ethical. Additionally, we propose design guidelines inspired by the debate over the adoption of the intentional stance.

scholarly journals Belief in sharing the same phenomenological experience increases the likelihood of adopting the intentional stance towards a humanoid robot

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Marchesi ◽  
Davide De Tommaso ◽  
Jairo Pérez-Osorio ◽  
Agnieszka Wykowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Humanoid Robot ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Social Bonding ◽  
Human Model ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Phenomenological Experience

Humans interpret and predict others’ behaviors by ascribing them intentions or beliefs, or in other words, by adopting the intentional stance. Since artificial agents are increasingly populating our daily environments, the question arises whether (and under which conditions) humans would apply the “human-model” to understand the behaviors of these new social agents. Thus, in a series of three experiments we tested whether embedding humans in a social interaction with a humanoid robot either displaying a human-like or machine-like behavior, would modulate their initial bias towards adopting the intentional stance. Results showed that indeed humans are more prone to adopt the intentional stance after having interacted with a more socially available and human-like robot, while no modulation of the adoption of the intentional stance emerged towards a mechanistic robot. We conclude that short experiences with humanoid robots presumably inducing a “like-me” impression and social bonding increase the likelihood of adopting the intentional stance.

Agency and rationality: Adopting the intentional stance toward evolved virtual agents.

Decision ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Pantelis ◽  
Timothy Gerstner ◽  
Kevin Sanik ◽  
Ari Weinstein ◽  
Steven A. Cholewiak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Intentional Stance

A Transparent and Decentralized Model of Perception and Action for Intelligent Virtual Agents

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 1460020 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Anastassakis ◽  
Themis Panayiotopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Perception And Action ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Virtual Agent ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Intelligent Virtual Agents ◽  
Decentralized Model ◽  
Over Time

Intelligent virtual agent behaviour is a crucial element of any virtual environment application as it essentially brings the environment to life, introduces believability and realism and enables complex interactions and evolution over time. However, the development of mechanisms for virtual agent perception and action is neither a trivial nor a straight-forward task. In this paper we present a model of perception and action for intelligent virtual agents that meets specific requirements and can as such be systematically implemented, can seamlessly and transparently integrate with knowledge representation and intelligent reasoning mechanisms, is highly independent of virtual world implementation specifics, and enables virtual agent portability and reuse.

Believable and Effective AI Agents in Virtual Worlds

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iskander Umarov ◽  
Maxim Mozgovoy
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
High Ability ◽  
Topic Area ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Creation

The rapid development of complex virtual worlds (most notably, in 3D computer and video games) introduces new challenges for the creation of virtual agents, controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Two important subproblems in this topic area which need to be addressed are (a) believability and (b) effectiveness of agents’ behavior, i.e., human-likeness of the characters and high ability to achieving their own goals. In this paper, the authors study current approaches to believability and effectiveness of AI behavior in virtual worlds. They examine the concepts of believability and effectiveness, and analyze several successful attempts to address these challenges.

scholarly journals Towards Learning ‘Self’ and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions

2011 ◽  
pp. 305-324
Author(s):  
Wan Ching Ho ◽  
Kerstin Dautenhahn ◽  
Meiyii Lim ◽  
Sibylle Enz ◽  
Carsten Zoll ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Agent Interactions ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
The World ◽  
Intelligent Virtual Agents ◽  
Emotional Knowledge

This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modelling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottom-up approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.

scholarly journals Chapter 9 - Theory of Mind and Joint Attention - The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jairo Pérez-Osorio ◽  
Eva Wiese ◽  
Agnieszka Wykowska
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Social Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Intelligent Virtual Agents

The present chapter provides an overview from the perspective of social cognitive neuroscience (SCN) regarding theory of mind (ToM) and joint attention (JA) as crucial mechanisms of social cognition and discusses how these mechanisms have been investigated in social interaction with artificial agents. In the final sections, the chapter reviews computational models of ToM and JA in social robots (SRs) and intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and discusses the current challenges and future directions.

scholarly journals Towards Learning ‘Self' and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions

2010 ◽  
pp. 602-621
Author(s):  
Wan Ching Ho ◽  
Kerstin Dautenhahn ◽  
Meiyii Lim ◽  
Sibylle Enz ◽  
Carsten Zoll ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Agent Interactions ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
The World ◽  
Intelligent Virtual Agents ◽  
Emotional Knowledge

This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modelling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottom-up approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.

Theoretical Considerations for Social Learning between a Human Observer and a Robot Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1057-1061
Author(s):  
Boyoung Kim ◽  
Elizabeth Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Affective Responses ◽  
Human Observer ◽  
Robot Design ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Unethical Behaviors ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Robot Appearance ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Robots are entering various domains of human societies, potentially unfolding more opportunities for people to perceive robots as social agents. We expect that having robots in proximity would create unique social learning situations where humans spontaneously observe and imitate robots’ behaviors. At times, these occurrences of humans’ imitating robot behaviors may result in a spread of unsafe or unethical behaviors among humans. For responsible robot designing, therefore, we argue that it is essential to understand physical and psychological triggers of social learning in robot design. Grounded in the existing literature of social learning and the uncanny valley theories, we discuss the human-likeness of robot appearance and affective responses associated with robot appearance as likely factors that either facilitate or deter social learning. We propose practical considerations for social learning and robot design.

scholarly journals Association of Game Events with Facial Animations of Computer-Controlled Virtual Characters Based on Probabilistic Human Reaction Modeling

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (16) ◽  
pp. 5636
Author(s):  
Wafaa Alsaggaf ◽  
Georgios Tsaramirsis ◽  
Norah Al-Malki ◽  
Fazal Qudus Khan ◽  
Miadah Almasry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Virtual Agents ◽  
Board Game ◽  
Virtual Character ◽  
Virtual Characters ◽  
Computer Controlled ◽  
Human Player

Computer-controlled virtual characters are essential parts of most virtual environments and especially computer games. Interaction between these virtual agents and human players has a direct impact on the believability of and immersion in the application. The facial animations of these characters are a key part of these interactions. The player expects the elements of the virtual world to act in a similar manner to the real world. For example, in a board game, if the human player wins, he/she would expect the computer-controlled character to be sad. However, the reactions, more specifically, the facial expressions of virtual characters in most games are not linked with the game events. Instead, they have pre-programmed or random behaviors without any understanding of what is really happening in the game. In this paper, we propose a virtual character facial expression probabilistic decision model that will determine when various facial animations should be played. The model was developed by studying the facial expressions of human players while playing a computer videogame that was also developed as part of this research. The model is represented in the form of trees with 15 extracted game events as roots and 10 associated animations of facial expressions with their corresponding probability of occurrence. Results indicated that only 1 out of 15 game events had a probability of producing an unexpected facial expression. It was found that the “win, lose, tie” game events have more dominant associations with the facial expressions than the rest of game events, followed by “surprise” game events that occurred rarely, and finally, the “damage dealing” events.

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