David Pizzi

Madame bovary on the holodeck: immersive interactive storytelling

In this paper, we describe a small-scale, yet complete, integration of a real-time immersive interactive storytelling system. While significant progress has been achieved in recent years on the individual component technologies of interactive storytelling, the main objective of this work is to investigate the concept of interactive storytelling in a fully immersive context. We describe each individual component of immersive interactive storytelling from a technical perspective. We have used a commercial game engine as a development environment, supporting real-time visualisation as well as the inclusion of Artificial Intelligence components controlling virtual actors. This visualisation engine has been ported to an immersive setting using dedicated software and hardware supporting real-time stereoscopic visualisation. The hardware platform is built around a 4-sided CAVE-like immersive display operated by a PC-cluster. The interactive storytelling engine is constituted by a planning system based on characters motivations and emotional states. The user can interact with the virtual world using multimodal interaction. We illustrate the systems behaviour on the implementation of excerpts from Madame Bovary, a classic XIXth century novel, and demonstrate the ability for the user to play the role of one of the characters and influence the unfolding of the story by his actions.

Narratology for interactive storytelling: a critical introduction

Most research in Interactive Storytelling (IS) has sought inspiration in narrative theories issued from contemporary narratology to either identify fundamental concepts or derive formalisms for their implementation. In the former case, the theoretical approach gives raise to empirical solutions, while the latter develops Interactive Storytelling as some form of “computational narratology”, modelled on computational linguistics. In this paper, we review the most frequently cited theories from the perspective of IS research. We discuss in particular the extent to which they can actually inspire IS technologies and highlight key issues for the effective use of narratology in IS.

Revisiting Character-Based Affective Storytelling under a Narrative BDI Framework

Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) is a well-known cognitive theory, especially in the field of Software Agents. Modelling characters using software agents has been proven to be a suitable approach for obtaining emergent and autonomous behaviours in Interactive Storytelling. In this paper it is claimed that an effective extension of previous models to the BDI framework is useful for designing intelligent characters. An example shows how internal thoughts and motivations of Madame Bovary s main characters can be more naturally formalised as a cognitive side of the story. A narrative reformulation of BDI theory is needed to avoid the implicit complexity of other proposals.

From Debugging to Authoring: Adapting Productivity Tools to Narrative Content Description

Recent progress in Interactive Storytelling has been mostly based on the development of proof-of-concept prototypes, whilst the actual production process for interactive narratives largely remains to be invented. Central to this effort is the concept of authoring, which should determine the relationships between generative technologies underlying Interactive Storytelling engines, and the actual description of narrative content. In this paper, we report the development of an authoring technology on top of a fully-implemented Interactive Storytelling system. Although this system originated as a debugging tool for a Planning system, its interactivity as well as the high-level nature of the formalism it manipulates makes it a candidate to support collaboration between authors and technologists.

Exploring the usability of immersive interactive storytelling

The Entertainment potential of Virtual Reality is yet to be fully realised. In recent years, this potential has been described through the Holodeck#8482; metaphor, without however addressing the issue of content creation and gameplay. Recent progress in Interactive Narrative technology makes it possible to envision immersive systems. Yet, little is known about the usability of such systems or which paradigms should be adopted for gameplay and interaction. We report user experiments carried out with a fully immersive Interactive Narrative system based on a CAVE-like system, which explore two interactivity paradigms for user involvement (Actor and Ghost). Our results confirm the potential of immersive Interactive Narratives in terms of performance but also of user acceptance.

Persuasive dialogue based on a narrative theory: an ECA implementation

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) are poised to constitute a specific category within persuasive systems, in particular through their ability to support affective dialogue. One possible approach consists in using ECA as virtual coaches or personal assistants and to make persuasion part of a dialogue game implementing specific argumentation or negotiation features. In this paper, we explore an alternative framework, which emerges from the long-term development of ECA as “Companions” supporting free conversation with the user, rather than task-oriented dialogue. Our system aims at influencing user attitudes as part of free conversation, albeit on a limited set of topics. We describe the implementation of a Companion ECA to which the user reports on his working day, and which can assess the user’s emotional attitude towards daily events in the office, trying to influence such attitude using affective strategies derived from a narrative model. This discussion is illustrated through examples from a first fully-implemented prototype.

Subliminal cueing of selection behavior in a virtual environment

The performance of current graphics engines makes it possible to incorporate subliminal cues within virtual environments (VEs), providing an additional way of communication, fully integrated with the exploration of a virtual scene. In order to advance the application of subliminal information in this area, it is necessary to explore in the psychological literature how techniques previously reported as rendering information subliminal can be successfully implemented in VEs. Previous literature has also described the effects of subliminal cues as quantitatively modest, which raises the issue of their inclusion in practical tasks. We used a 3D rendering engine (Unity3D) to implement a masking paradigm within the context of a realistic scene and a familiar (kitchen) environment. We report significant effects of subliminal cueing on the selection of objects in a virtual scene, demonstrating the feasibility of subliminal cueing in VEs. Furthermore, we show that multiple iterations of masked objects within a trial, as well as the speeding of selection choices, can substantially reinforce the impact of subliminal cues. This is consistent with previous findings suggesting that the effect of subliminal stimuli fades rapidly. We conclude by proposing, as part of further work, possible mechanisms for the inclusion of subliminal cueing in intelligent interfaces to maximize their effects.

Interaction strategies for an affective conversational agent

The development of Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) as Companions brings several challenges for both affective and conversational dialogue. These include challenges in generating appropriate affective responses, selecting the overall shape of the dialogue, providing prompt system response times and handling interruptions. We present an implementation of such a Companion showing the development of individual modules that attempt to address these challenges. Further, to resolve resulting conflicts, we present encompassing interaction strategies that attempt to balance the competing requirements. Finally, we present dialogues from our working prototype to illustrate these interaction strategies in operation.

Covert Persuasive Technologies: Bringing Subliminal Cues to Human-Computer Interaction

The capability of machines to covertly persuade humans is both exciting and ethically concerning. In the present study we aim to bring subliminal masked stimulus paradigms to realistic environments, through Virtual Environments. The goal is to test if such paradigms are applicable to realistic setups while identifying the major challenges when doing so. We designed a study in which the user performed a realistic selection task in a virtual kitchen. For trials below one-second reaction time, we report significant effect of subliminal cues on the selection behavior. We conclude the study with a discussion of the challenges of bringing subliminal cueing paradigms to realistic HCI setups. Ethical concerns when designing covertly persuasive systems are discussed as well.

Incorporating subliminal perception in synthetic environments

Advanced interactive visualization such as in virtual environments and ubiquitous interaction paradigms pose new challenges and opportunities in considering real-time responses to subliminal cues. In this paper, we propose a synthetic reality platform that, combined with psychophysiological recordings, enables us to study in realtime the effects of various subliminal cues. We endeavor to integrate various aspects known to be relevant to implicit perception. The context is of consumer experience and choice of an artifact where the generation of subliminal perception through an intelligent 3D interface controls the spatio-temporal aspects of the information displayed and of the emergent narrative. One novel contribution of this work is the programmable nature of the interface that exploits known perceptive phenomena (e.g. masking, crowding and change blindness) to generate subliminal perception.