SGER: Research to Improve Communication by Pedagogical Agents

SGER：改善教学人员沟通的研究

• 批准号: 0827188
• 负责人: Jie Yan
• 金额: $ 8.41万
• 依托单位: Bowie State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-06-01 至 2010-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0827188&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Research; Improve; Communication; Pedagogical

There is great need for accessible and effective intelligent tutoring systems that can improve learning by children and adults. In this project, the PI will investigate the role of facial expressions and head movements produced by a lifelike animated character with the goal of indicating important information in a story or the emotions of the characters. The PI's hypothesis is that stories in which the virtual storyteller emulates natural head movements and emotions will lead to increased engagement by subjects, more positive ratings of the storyteller, and better comprehension of the stories. To validate the hypothesis, the PI will conduct experiments in which she manipulates the head movements and facial emotions of a virtual storyteller, so as to emphasize specific speech intervals or to provide emotional expression through the storyteller?s voice. She will analyze videotapes of subjects listening to and looking at the storyteller to assess how attentive they are, and she will also employ questionnaires to measure the subjects? impressions of how believable, credible and human-like the virtual storyteller appears to be. She will further ask subjects to summarize the stories they heard, and will then analyze the summaries both for comprehension and for recollection of emotional content. By these means the PI expects to lay the foundation for a powerful new experimental approach for investigating engaging and effective communication by lifelike animated characters through speech, head movements and facial expression of emotions, and to derive important new insights about how voice and facial expressions can be combined in optimal ways to enable pedagogical agents to provide more believable and effective communication experiences.Broader Impacts: This exploratory research will provide new insights and knowledge about the role of face and head gestures, and facial displays of emotion, on engagement and learning in intelligent tutoring programs that use lifelike pedagogical agents. Project outcomes will inform the design of pedagogical agents that can produce more engaging and natural dialogs and narrations, which in turn will ultimately lead to more effective technology that benefits diverse learner groups across a wide range of application domains.

非常需要可以改善儿童和成人学习的可访问和有效的智能辅导系统。 在这个项目中，PI将研究逼真的动画角色产生的面部表情和头部运动的作用，目的是表明故事中的重要信息或角色的情感。 PI的假设是，虚拟讲故事者模仿自然的头部运动和情绪的故事将导致受试者的参与度增加，讲故事者的积极评价更高，以及对故事的更好理解。 为了验证这一假设，PI将进行实验，在实验中，她操纵一个虚拟讲故事的人的头部运动和面部情绪，以便强调特定的语音间隔或通过讲故事的人提供情感表达？的声音。 她将分析受试者听和看讲故事者的录像带，以评估他们的注意力有多集中，她还将使用问卷调查来衡量受试者？虚拟故事讲述者的可信度、可信度和人性化程度的印象。 她将进一步要求受试者总结他们听到的故事，然后分析总结，以理解和回忆情感内容。 通过这些手段，PI希望为一种强大的新实验方法奠定基础，以研究逼真的动画角色通过语音，头部运动和面部表情的情感来进行吸引人和有效的沟通，并获得有关语音和面部表情如何以最佳方式组合的重要新见解，使教学代理人能够提供更可信和有效的沟通体验。这项探索性的研究将提供新的见解和知识的作用，面部和头部的姿态，面部表情，参与和学习的智能辅导计划，使用逼真的教学代理。 项目成果将为教学代理的设计提供信息，这些代理可以产生更吸引人和更自然的对话和叙述，这反过来又将最终导致更有效的技术，使广泛的应用领域中的不同学习者群体受益。