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Pedagogical agents are animated characters embedded within an e-learning environment to facilitate learning. With the growing understanding of the complex interplay between emotions and cognition, there is a need to design agents that can provide believable simulated emotional interactions with the learner. Best practices from the animation industry could be used to improve the believability of the agents. A well-known best practice is that the movements of limbs/torso/head play the most important role in conveying the character's emotion, followed by eyes/face and lip sync, respectively, in a long/medium shot. The researchers' study tested the validity of this best practice using statistical methods. It investigated the contribution of 3 body channels (torso/limbs/head, face, speech) to the expression of 5 emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise) in a stylized agent in a full body shot. Findings confirm the biggest contributor to the perceived believability of the animated emotion is the character's body, followed by face and speech respectively, across 4 out of 5 emotions.
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Developing a Scale for Measuring the Believability of Virtual Agents
Creating believable virtual agents has long been the focus of artists and scientists. A believable agent enables the audience to be emotionally involved in a narrative, willingly suspending their disbelief for the pleasure of appreciating literacy, drama, film, etc. In the past few decades, believability has become the goal of virtual reality developers and researchers. In the realm of virtual reality, it is commonly accepted that a believable virtual agent should have personality, emotion, agency, intelligence, and more. Despite its seemingly complicated requirements, believability is a fragile product that can be easily jeopardized by missing one or more of these elements. In this paper, we review the questionnaires that past researchers have used on the topic of virtual agents' believability. Based on the prevailing questions identified in the relevant studies, we propose a scale-aiming at standardizing one-for measuring the believability of virtual agents. We recommend that future research involving virtual agents refer to this scale to evaluate the level of their believability.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2201019
- PAR ID:
- 10499912
- Editor(s):
- Eurographics
- Publisher / Repository:
- Eurographics Digital Library
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence & Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments (ICAT-EGVE)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 45-52
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Dublin, Ireland
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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