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A Wizard‐of‐Oz platform for embodied conversational agents
Author(s) -
Brown Edward,
Barrett Neil
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
computer animation and virtual worlds
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.225
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1546-427X
pISSN - 1546-4261
DOI - 10.1002/cav.129
Subject(s) - computer science , human–computer interaction , flexibility (engineering) , embodied agent , embodied cognition , protocol (science) , architecture , rapid prototyping , wizard , software engineering , artificial intelligence , world wide web , medicine , art , visual arts , statistics , alternative medicine , mathematics , pathology , mechanical engineering , engineering
A low‐cost prototyping environment for experimenting with embodied conversational agents is discussed. The platform allows modeling and experimenting with different agent constructs and protocols prior to significant investment in the construction of the agent environment. Problems in the design of such a platform include the substantial number of agent controls needed and the flexibility required to represent the constructs of different theories, protocols and target environments as they are introduced and developed. These problems are addressed by augmenting a movie clip manager with a general drawing palette as a design tool. The result is a prototyping environment which simulates multiple agents on a desktop while allowing arbitrary notational conventions. The current version does not render multiple agents in a shared virtual environment, but the protocol‐based architecture is amenable to such extensions. In the meantime, valuable results regarding the social character of multiple agent interaction can be explored with the existing tool. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.