Hung-Hsuan Huang

From observation to simulation: generating culture-specific behavior for interactive systems

In this article we present a parameterized model for generating multimodal behavior based on cultural heuristics. To this end, a multimodal corpus analysis of human interactions in two cultures serves as the empirical basis for the modeling endeavor. Integrating the results from this empirical study with a well-established theory of cultural dimensions, it becomes feasible to generate culture-specific multimodal behavior in embodied agents by giving evidence for the cultural background of the agent. Two sample applications are presented that make use of the model and are designed to be applied in the area of coaching intercultural communication.

Creating standardized video recordings of multimodal interactions across cultures

Trying to adapt the behavior of an interactive system to the cultural background of the user requires information on how relevant behaviors differ as a function of the users cultural background. To gain such insights in the interrelation of culture and behavior patterns, the information from the literature is often too anecdotal to serve as the basis for modeling a systems behavior, making it necessary to collect multimodal corpora in a standardized fashion in different cultures. In this chapter, the challenges of such an endeavor are introduced and solutions are presented by examples from a German-Japanese project that aims at modeling culture-specific behaviors for Embodied Conversational Agents.

Toward a multi-culture adaptive virtual tour guide agent with a modular approach

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are computer-generated, human-like characters that interact with human users in face-to-face conversations. ECA is a powerful tool for representing cultural differences and is suitable for interactive training or edutainment systems. This article presents preliminary results from the development of a culture-adaptive virtual tour guide agent for serving Japanese, Croatian, and general Western users by displaying appropriate verbal and non-verbal behaviors. It is being implemented in Generic ECA Framework, a modular framework for developing ECAs. Dividing the ECA functions into reusable and loosely coupled modules minimizes the effort required to implement additional behavior and facilitates incremental scale up of the system.

Integrating embodied conversational agent components with a generic framework

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) are computer generated life-like characters that interact with human users in face-to-face conversations. To achieve natural multi-modal conversations, ECA systems are sophisticated and require numbers of building assemblies. They are thus difficult for an individual research group to develop. To address this problem, we are developing an approach to connect those components with a Generic ECA (GECA) framework. GECA is composed with a blackboard-model based platform, a high-level protocol and a set of APIs which are meant for easing component wrapper development. As an expectation, with such a generic ECA framework, rapid ECA system prototyping is possible while research result sharing and the collaboration between ECA researchers can be facilitated. This paper describes the basic concepts of this framework, an initial implementation and evaluations of actually using it to build a realistic ECA application.

Toward a universal platform for integrating embodied conversational agent components

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) are computer generated life-like characters that interact with human users in face-to-face conversations. To achieve natural multi-modal conversations, ECA systems are very sophisticated and require many building assemblies and thus are difficult for individual research groups to develop. This paper proposes a generic architecture, the Universal ECA Framework, which is currently under development and includes a blackboard-based platform, a high-level protocol to integrate general purpose ECA components and ease ECA system prototyping.

Towards an Embodied Conversational Agent Talking in Croatian

The advancement of traffic makes world more and more internationalized and increases frequency of communication between people who come from different cultures. Differences in their conversation go beyond the languages they speak to the non-verbal behaviors they express while talking. To improve the abilities of the embodied conversational agents (ECAs) while interacting with human users we are working on the ECA based application, a tour guide of city Dubrovnik that servers visitors in Japanese, Croatian and general western cultures speaking in English. This paper presents the overall architecture and explains possible extension with another culture. It describes issues we met while making agent talk in Croatian and proposed solutions.

A Quiz Game Console Based on a Generic Embodied Conversational Agent Framework

This article describes an attempt to build a quiz game kiosk for show-room use based on the Generic Embodied Conversational Agent (GECA) Framework [1] that provides a general purpose architecture for connecting modularized ECA functional components for multimodal human-agent interactions.

An agent based multicultural tour guide system with nonverbal user interface

The advancement of traffic and computer networks makes the world more and more internationalized and increases the frequency of communications between people who speak different languages and show different nonverbal behaviors. To improve the communication of embodied conversational agent (ECA) systems with their human users, the importance of their capability to cover cultural differences emerged. Various excellent ECA systems are developed and proposed previously, however, the cross-culture communication issues are seldom addressed by researchers. This paper describes a short-term project aiming to explore the possibility of rapidly building multicultural and the multimodal ECA interfaces for a tour guide system by using a generic framework connecting their functional blocks.

Scripting Human-Agent Interactions in a Generic ECA Framework

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) are life-like CG characters that interact with human users in face-to-face conversations. To achieve natural multi-modal conversations, ECA systems are sophisticated and are composed with assemblies of various functions. They are thus difficult for an individual research group to develop. To address this problem, we are developing a Generic ECA Framework to integrate those assemblies with each other seamlessly. It is composed with a low-level communication platform, a high-level protocol and a set of API libraries. With such a common framework, ECAs can be prototyped rapidly while research result sharing can be facilitated. This paper presents the_concepts of this framework, protocol, and a script language that defines the behaviours of an ECA.

A Script Driven Multimodal Embodied Conversational Agent Based on a Generic Framework

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) are life-like CG characters that interact with human users in face-to-face conversations. To achieve natural conversations, they need to understand the inputs from human users, deliberate the responding behaviors and realize those behaviors in multiple modalities. They are sophisticated, require numbers of building assemblies and are thus difficult for individual research groups to develop. To facilitate result sharing and rapid prototyping of ECA researches, a Generic ECA Framework that is meant to integrate ECA assemblies seamlessly is being developed by our group. This framework is composed of a low-level communication platform (GECA Platform), a set of communication API libraries (GECA Plugs) and a high-level protocol (GECA Protocol, GECAP).