Eye communication in a conversational 3D synthetic agent

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Poggi, Isabella | Pelachaud, Catherine | De Rosis, Fiorella

Affiliations: Department of Linguistics, University of Rome Three, Via del Castro Pretorio 20, 00185 Rome, Italy | Department of Computer and System Science, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy | Department of Informatics, Intelligent Interfaces, University of Bari, Palazzo Ateneo, 70121 Bari, Italy

Abstract: Our goal is to create an ‘intelligent’ 3D agent able to send complex, ‘natural’ messages to users and, in the future, to converse with them. We look at the relationship between the agent's communicative intentions and the way that these intentions are expressed into verbal and nonverbal messages. In this paper, we concentrate on the study and generation of coordinated linguistic and gaze communicative acts. In this view we analyse gaze signals according to their functional meaning rather than to their physical actions. We propose a formalism where a communicative act is represented by two elements: a meaning (that corresponds to a set of goals and beliefs that the agent has the purpose to transmit to the interlocutor) and a signal, that is the nonverbal expression of that meaning. We also outline a methodology to generate messages that coordinate verbal with nonverbal signals.

Journal: AI Communications, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 169-181, 2000