scholarly journals The WOOL Dialogue Platform: Enabling Interdisciplinary User-Friendly Development of Dialogue for Conversational Agents

2022 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Tessa Beinema ◽  
Harm op den Akker ◽  
Dennis Hofs ◽  
Boris van Schooten
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Health Coaching ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agents ◽  
Authoring Tools ◽  
Conversational Agent ◽  
Conversational Agents ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
Agent Development

Health coaching applications can include (embodied) conversational agents as coaches. The development of these agents requires an interdisciplinary cooperation between eHealth application developers, interaction designers and domain experts. Therefore, proper dialogue authoring tools and tools to integrate these dialogues in a conversational agent system are essential in the process of creating successful agent-based applications. However, we found no existing open source, easy-to-use authoring tools that support multidisciplinary agent development. To that end, we developed the WOOL Dialogue Platform. The WOOL Dialogue Platform provides the eHealth and conversational agent communities with an open source platform, consisting of a set of easy to use tools that facilitate virtual agent development. The platform consists of a dialogue definition language, an editor, application development libraries and a web service. To illustrate the platform’s possibilities and use in practice, we describe two use cases from EU Horizon 2020 research projects. The WOOL Dialogue Platform is an ‘easy to use, and powerful if needed’ platform for the development of conversational agent applications that is seeing a slow but steady increase in uptake in the eHealth community. Developed to support dialogue authoring for embodied conversational agents in the health coaching domain, this platform’s strong points are its ease of use and ability to let domain experts and agents technology experts work together by providing all parties with tools that support their work effectively.

Embodied Conversational Agents

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole C. Krämer ◽  
Gary Bente ◽  
Felix Eschenburg ◽  
Heide Troitzsch
Keyword(s):  
User Acceptance ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agents ◽  
Conversational Agent ◽  
Conversational Agents ◽  
Biometric System ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agent ◽  
Biometric Security ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
New Research

It was analyzed whether an embodied conversational agent (ECA) has specific advantages when employed with privacy invading technologies such as a biometric security system. The study compares the effects of an ECA interface with the effects of conventional text-based and voice-based interfaces on user acceptance and usability. An additional variable was whether the biometric system falsely rejected the user twice or whether it directly accepted him/her. Results of the 2 × 3 between-subjects design indicated that, although overall the text interface is rated most positive, voice and ECA yield distinct social effects: They have more advantageous consequences when problems arise – i.e., when the user is rejected repeatedly. The implications for social psychology in terms of applicability of new research methods as well as insights concerning fundamental research are discussed.

scholarly journals Embodied Conversational Characters: Wandering between the Digital and the Physical World (Digitale Weltenwanderer: Synthetische Charaktere zwischen Realität und Virtualität)

2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth André ◽  
Klaus Dorfmüller-Ulhaas ◽  
Thomas Rist
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviors ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agents ◽  
Conversational Agent ◽  
Conversational Agents ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agent

SummaryThe objective to develop more human-centered, personalized, and at the same time more entertaining interfaces immediately leads to the metaphor of an embodied conversational agent that employs gestures, mimics, and speech to communicate with the human user. Looking at past and current projects, the current paper discusses an ongoing and manifold evolution of embodied conversational agents from conversational settings with single presenters to interactive performances where the user may participate both as an observer and a presenter. We report on new trends, such as the integration of characters in mixed realities as well as endeavours to endow characters with social behaviors.

scholarly journals Interaction Strategies for an Affective Conversational Agent

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 395-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Smith ◽  
Nigel Crook ◽  
Daniel Charlton ◽  
Johan Boye ◽  
Raul Santos de la Camara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Affective Responses ◽  
Evaluation Methodology ◽  
System Response ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agents ◽  
Conversational Agent ◽  
Conversational Agents

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 along with dialogues from our working prototype to illustrate these interaction strategies in operation. Finally, we provide the results of an evaluation of the companion using an evaluation methodology created for conversational dialogue and including analysis using appropriateness annotation.

Intersubjectivity in human–agent interaction

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Cassell ◽  
Andrea Tartaro
Keyword(s):  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Embodied Conversational Agents ◽  
Conversational Agents ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
Unconscious Communication ◽  
Agent Interaction ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
And Robotics

What is the hallmark of success in human–agent interaction? In animation and robotics, many have concentrated on the looks of the agent — whether the appearance is realistic or lifelike. We present an alternative benchmark that lies in the dyad and not the agent alone: Does the agent’s behavior evoke intersubjectivity from the user? That is, in both conscious and unconscious communication, do users react to behaviorally realistic agents in the same way they react to other humans? Do users appear to attribute similar thoughts and actions? We discuss why we distinguish between appearance and behavior, why we use the benchmark of intersubjectivity, our methodology for applying this benchmark to embodied conversational agents (ECAs), and why we believe this benchmark should be applied to human–robot interaction.

Knowledge-Based System supported by Chatbot to assist the Risk Classification Process of Patients in Hospital Emergency care (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marciane Mueller ◽  
Rejane Frozza ◽  
Liane Mählmann Kipper ◽  
Ana Carolina Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Medical Care ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Emergency Care ◽  
Risk Classification ◽  
Conversational Agent ◽  
Conversational Agents ◽  
Hospital Emergency ◽  
Knowledge Based System ◽  
Knowledge Based

BACKGROUND This article presents the modeling and development of a Knowledge Based System, supported by the use of a virtual conversational agent called Dóris. Using natural language processing resources, Dóris collects the clinical data of patients in care in the context of urgency and hospital emergency. OBJECTIVE The main objective is to validate the use of virtual conversational agents to properly and accurately collect the data necessary to perform the evaluation flowcharts used to classify the degree of urgency of patients and determine the priority for medical care. METHODS The agent's knowledge base was modeled using the rules provided for in the evaluation flowcharts comprised by the Manchester Triage System. It also allows the establishment of a simple, objective and complete communication, through dialogues to assess signs and symptoms that obey the criteria established by a standardized, validated and internationally recognized system. RESULTS Thus, in addition to verifying the applicability of Artificial Intelligence techniques in a complex domain of health care, a tool is presented that helps not only in the perspective of improving organizational processes, but also in improving human relationships, bringing professionals and patients closer. The system's knowledge base was modeled on the IBM Watson platform. CONCLUSIONS The results obtained from simulations carried out by the human specialist allowed us to verify that a knowledge-based system supported by a virtual conversational agent is feasible for the domain of risk classification and priority determination of medical care for patients in the context of emergency care and hospital emergency.

Physically embodied conversational agents as health and fitness companions

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markku Turunen ◽  
Jaakko Hakulinen ◽  
Cameron Smith ◽  
Daniel Charlton ◽  
Li Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Conversational Agents ◽  
Conversational Agents ◽  
Health And Fitness
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