Johan F. Hoorn

Some Like It Bad: Testing a Model for Perceiving and Experiencing Fictional Characters

We developed an encompassing theory that explains how readers of fiction and spectators of motion pictures establish affective relationships with fictional characters (FCs). The perceiving and experiencing fictional characters (PEFiC) theory is anchored in art perception, psychological aesthetics, and social and emotion psychology and addresses both the complexity and intrinsic affectivity involved in media exposure. In a between-subject design (N = 312), engagement and appreciation were measured as a function of the ethics (good vs. bad), aesthetics (beautiful vs. ugly), and epistemics (realistic vs. unrealistic) of eight protagonists in feature movies. The PEFiC model best fit the data with a unipolarity of factors and outperformed traditional theories (identification, empathy): The trade-off between involvement and distance explained the appreciation of FCs better than either distance or involvement alone. The mediators similarity, relevance, and valence exerted significant (interaction) effects, thus complicating the results. Furthermore, the effects of mediated bad persons differed strongly from ethically good ones.

Perceiving and experiencing fictional characters: an integrative account

:  Fictional characters (FCs) and mediated persons in literature, theater, film, art, TV, and digital media fulfill basic psychological functions, although the processes involved remain unspecified. Departing from identification and empathy hypotheses, a new context-sensitive model draws upon similarity studies, empirical aesthetics, persuasion, emotion, and social psychology. The Perceiving and Experiencing Fictional Characters model (PEFiC-model) has three phases. During encoding, observers judge FCs in terms of ethics (good-bad), aesthetics (beautiful-ugly), and epistemics (realistic-unrealistic). Comparison entails appraisals of personal relevance as well as valence towards and (dis)similarity between the dramatis personae and the self. In the response phase, appreciation of FCs is a trade-off between the parallel, unipolar processes of involvement and distance. Intricate involvement-distance conflicts occur when subjective norms disagree with ingroup norms. Furthermore, features participate in multiple (fuzzy) sets (e.g., partly good and partly bad). PEFiC can handle complex responses towards representations of (non-existent) others, such as attractive dissimilarity, the beauty in ugliness, the appeal of negative experiences, and fascination for evil, as well as mixed emotions, ambivalence, and neutral end-states that actually conceal emotional confusion.

Affective affordances: Improving interface character engagement through interaction

The nature of humans interacting with interface characters (e.g. embodied agents) is not well understood. The I-PEFiC model provides an integrative perspective on human-character interaction, assuming that the processes of engagement and user interaction exchange information in explaining user responses with interface characters. An experiment using the Sims2 game was conducted to test the effects of aesthetics (beautiful versus ugly, as engagement factor) and affordances (help versus obstacle, as interaction factor) of interface characters on use intentions, user engagement, and user satisfaction. Results of the experiment showed that (1) people tended to use helpful characters more than obstructing characters, (2) user engagement was enhanced by beauty and perceived affordance of the character whereas (3) intentions to use the character were not affected by good looks, and (4) the most satisfied users were those that were engaged with the character as well as willing to use it. This stresses the importance of enhancing affordances so to increase user engagement with interface characters. The I-PEFiC model provided a valuable framework to study the (interdependent) effects of relevant factors in human-character interaction.

Alignment and maturity are siblings in architecture assessment

Current architecture assessment models focus on either architecture maturity or architecture alignment, considering the other as an explaining sub-variable. Based on an exploratory study, we conjecture that both alignment and maturity are equally important variables in properly assessing architecture organizations. Our hypothesis is that these variables conceptually differ, correlate, but do not explain one another. In this paper we describe our Multi-dimensional Assessment model for architecture Alignment and architecture Maturity (MAAM), which contains six main interrelated sub-variables that explain both alignment and maturity. We used existing models, literature from business and IS domains, and knowledge gained from previous research to identify the explaining variables. We constructed MAAM using structured modeling techniques. We are currently using a structured questionnaire method to construct an Internet survey with which we gather data to empirically validate our model. Our goal is to develop an architecture assessment process and supporting tool based on MAAM.

The lonesome architect

Although the benefits are well-known and undisputed, sharing architectural knowledge is not something architects automatically do. In an attempt to better understand what architects really do and what kind of support they need for sharing knowledge, we have conducted large-scale survey research. The results of our study indicate that architects can be characterized as rather lonesome decision makers who mainly consume, but neglect documenting and actively sharing architectural knowledge. Acknowledging this nature of architects suggests ways to develop more effective support for architectural knowledge sharing.

Coppélius' concoction: Similarity and complementarity among three affect-related agent models

In aiming for behavioral fidelity, artificial intelligence cannot and no longer ignores the formalization of human affect. Affect modeling plays a vital role in faithfully simulating human emotion and in emotionally-evocative technology that aims at being real. This paper offers a short expose about three models concerning the regulation and generation of affect: CoMERG, EMA and I-PEFiC^A^D^M, which each in their own right are successfully applied in the agent and robot domain. We argue that the three models partly overlap and where distinct, they complement one another. To enable their integration, we provide an analysis of the theoretical concepts, resulting in a more precise representation of affect simulation in virtual humans, which we verify with simulation tests.

When too heavy is just fine: Creating trustworthy e-health advisors

In using weight and diet advisors, people compare embodied agents with their actual selves and with the person they want to be: someone with an ideal weight; their ideal selves. In a laboratory and an online experiment, we scrutinized the effects of similarity with and idealness of an embodied agent feature on user involvement with, distance towards, and intentions to use the e-health advisor. The advisors body size was either similar or dissimilar to the users actual body size, and had an, according to the user, ideal (slender) or non-ideal (heavier) shape. Results indicated that the factor perceived idealness was more important than similarity for explaining involvement with, distance towards, and intentions to use the embodied agent, but in an unexpected way. Users regarded the heavier, non-ideal, e-health advisors as more trustworthy, which explained the larger part of the variance in the level of involvement, distance, and intentions to use a health advisor. Sometimes, it seems better to forget the stereotypical preference and design embodied agents that are not ideal.

Epistemics of the Virtual

Proposing a new theory of fiction, this work reviews the confusion about perceived realism, metaphor, virtual worlds and the seemingly obvious distinction between what is true and what is false. The rise of new media, new technology, and creative products and services requires a new examination of what ‘real’ friends are, to what extent scientific novelty is ‘true’, and whether online content is merely ‘figurative’. In this transdisciplinary theory the author evaluates cognitive theories, philosophical discussion, and topics in biology and physics, and places these in the frameworks of computer science and literary theory. The interest of the reader is continuously challenged on matters of truth, fiction, and the shakiness of our belief systems.

Comparing three computational models of affect

In aiming for behavioral fidelity, artificial intelligence cannot and no longer ignores the formalization of human affect. Affect modeling plays a vital role in faithfully simulating human emotion and in emotionally-evocative technology that aims at being real. This paper offers a short expose about three models concerning the generation and regulation of affect: CoMERG, EMA and I-PEFiCADM, which each in their own right are successfully applied in the agent and robot domain. We argue that the three models partly overlap and where distinct, they complement one another. We provide an analysis of the theoretical concepts, and provide a blueprint of an integration, which should result in a more precise representation of affect simulation in virtual humans.

A model for information technologies that can be creative

To contribute to HCI investigation and interface design that develops interactive systems for creative solutions, I attempt to formulate a model of the human capability to combine familiar objects or concepts in an unusual way. Important components of the creative process are feature association, combination, abstraction, selection, integration, and adaptation to establish an optimal fit between two or more semantically remote entities. In the act of creating, the goal is to show (a quantity of) similarity where no one saw it before. The function is knowledge acquisition (also emotionally), to find all the available possibilities in a given situation, (showing how) to find new solutions, new ways to get what you want. The effect of a creation may be surprise as a function of the tension between similarity and dissimilarity between objects and/or concepts. Depending on individual tolerance levels, the balance between similarity and dissimilarity may be satisfying or pleasing. Consequences for representations design are discussed.