CHS: Medium: Transforming Scientific Presentations with Co-Presenter Agents

CHS：媒介：与共同演示者代理一起转变科学演示

• 批准号: 1514490
• 负责人: Timothy Bickmore
• 金额: $ 116.43万
• 依托单位: Northeastern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-01 至 2021-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1514490&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CHS; Medium; Transforming; Scientific; Presentations

Although journal and conference articles are recognized as the most formal and enduring forms of scientific communication, oral presentations are central to science because they are the means by which researchers, practitioners, the media, and the public hear about the latest findings thereby becoming engaged and inspired, and where scientific reputations are made. Yet despite decades of technological advances in computing and communication media, the fundamentals of oral scientific presentations have not advanced since software such as Microsoft's PowerPoint was introduced in the 1980's. The PI's goal in this project is to revolutionize media-assisted oral presentations in general, and STEM presentations in particular, through the use of an intelligent, autonomous, life-sized, animated co-presenter agent that collaborates with a human presenter in preparing and delivering his or her talk in front of a live audience. The PI's pilot studies have demonstrated that audiences are receptive to this concept, and that the technology is especially effective for individuals who are non-native speakers of English (which may be up to 21% of the population of the United States). Project outcomes will be initially deployed and evaluated in higher education, both as a teaching tool for delivering STEM lectures and as a training tool for students in the sciences to learn how to give more effective oral presentations (which may inspire future generations to engage in careers in the sciences).This research will be based on a theory of human-agent collaboration, in which the human presenter is monitored using real-time speech and gesture recognition, audience feedback is also monitored, and the agent, presentation media, and human presenter (cued via an intelligent wearable teleprompter) are all dynamically choreographed to maximize audience engagement, communication, and persuasion. The project will make fundamental, theoretical contributions to models of real-time human-agent collaboration and communication. It will explore how humans and agents can work together to communicate effectively with a heterogeneous audience using speech, gesture, and a variety of presentation media, amplifying the abilities of scientist-orators who would otherwise be "flying solo." The work will advance both artificial intelligence and computational linguistics, by extending dialogue systems to encompass mixed-initiative, multi-party conversations among co-presenters and their audience. It will impact the state of the art in virtual agents, by advancing the dynamic generation of hand gestures, prosody, and proxemics for effective public speaking and turn-taking. And it will also contribute to the field of human-computer interaction, by developing new methods for human presenters to interact with autonomous co-presenter agents and their presentation media, including approaches to cueing human presenters effectively using wearable user interfaces.

尽管期刊和会议论文被认为是最正式和最持久的科学交流形式，但口头陈述对科学至关重要，因为它们是研究人员、实践者、媒体和公众了解最新发现的手段，从而使他们参与进来并受到启发，并在此建立科学声誉。然而，尽管在计算和通信媒体方面取得了几十年的技术进步，但自从微软的PowerPoint等软件在20世纪80年代的《S》中被引入以来，口头科学演示的基础并没有进步。这个项目的目标是通过使用智能的、自主的、真人大小的、动画的联合演示代理来革命媒体辅助的口头演示，特别是STEM演示，该代理与人类演示者合作，准备并在现场观众面前发表他或她的演讲。PI的试点研究表明，观众可以接受这一概念，而且这项技术对非英语母语的人(可能高达美国人口的21%)特别有效。项目成果将首先在高等教育中部署和评估，既作为提供STEM讲座的教学工具，也作为理科学生学习如何进行更有效的口头演示(这可能会激励后代从事科学事业)的培训工具。这项研究将基于人-主体协作理论，其中，使用实时语音和手势识别来监控人类演示者，也监控观众反馈，并且对主体、演示媒体和人类演示者(通过智能可穿戴提示器提示)进行动态设计，以最大限度地提高观众的参与度、沟通和说服力。该项目将对实时人-代理协作和通信的模型做出基础性的理论贡献。它将探索人类和代理人如何共同努力，使用语音、手势和各种演示媒体与不同的观众进行有效的沟通，放大科学家演说家的能力，否则他们将“独自飞行”。这项工作将推动人工智能和计算语言学的发展，将对话系统扩展到共同主持人和他们的观众之间的混合倡议、多方对话。它将通过促进动态生成手势、韵律和代理来有效地公开演讲和话轮转换，从而影响虚拟代理人的技术水平。它还将为人机交互领域做出贡献，为人类演示者开发与自主共同演示者代理及其演示媒体交互的新方法，包括使用可穿戴用户界面有效提示人类演示者的方法。