SGER: Research to Improve Communication by Pedagogical Agents

我们非常需要方便、有效的智能辅导系统，以提高儿童和成人的学习能力。在这个项目中，PI将研究一个栩栩如生的动画人物所产生的面部表情和头部动作的作用，目的是表明故事中的重要信息或人物的情绪。PI的假设是，在故事中，虚拟说书人模仿自然的头部运动和情绪，会增加受试者的参与度，对说书人的评价更高，对故事的理解也更好。为了验证这一假设，PI将进行实验，她将操纵虚拟说书人的头部动作和面部情绪，以强调特定的演讲间隔或通过说书人提供情感表达。年代的声音。她将分析受试者听故事和看故事的录像带，以评估他们的专注程度，她还将采用问卷调查来衡量受试者的注意力。对虚拟说书人的可信度、可信度和人性化的印象。她将进一步要求受试者总结他们听到的故事，然后分析这些总结，以便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，以研究逼真的动画人物通过言语，头部运动和面部表情进行有效的交流，并获得关于声音和面部表情如何以最佳方式结合的重要新见解，从而使教学代理能够提供更可信和有效的交流体验。更广泛的影响：这项探索性研究将提供新的见解和知识，关于面部和头部手势的作用，以及面部情绪的表现，在使用逼真的教学代理的智能辅导程序中的参与和学习。项目成果将为教学代理的设计提供信息，这些教学代理可以产生更有吸引力和更自然的对话和叙述，这反过来将最终导致更有效的技术，使各种应用领域的不同学习者群体受益。

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.