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Embodied conversational agents as conversational partners
Author(s) -
Louwerse Max M.,
Graesser Arthur C.,
McNamara Danielle S.,
Lu Shulan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1527
Subject(s) - gaze , embodied cognition , psychology , dialog system , fixation (population genetics) , eye tracking , embodied agent , joint attention , nonverbal communication , human–computer interaction , cognitive psychology , eye movement , communication , developmental psychology , dialog box , computer science , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , world wide web , autism , population , demography , sociology , psychoanalysis
Abstract Conversational agents are becoming more widespread in computer technologies but there has been little research in how humans interact with them. Two eye tracking studies investigated how humans distribute eye gaze towards conversational agents in complex tutoring systems. In Study 1, participants interacted with the single‐agent tutoring system AutoTutor. Fixation times showed that the agent received most attention throughout the interaction, even when display size was statistically controlled. In Study 2, participants interacted with iSTART. Fixations were on the relevant agents when these agents spoke. Both studies provided evidence that humans regard animated conversational agents as conversational partners in the communication process. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.