The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents provides a comprehensive overview of the research fields of Embodied Conversational Agents Intelligent Virtual Agents and Social Robotics. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs) whether virtually or physically embodied are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents reason decide how to interact and express attitudes such as emotions engagement or empathy. They are capable of interacting with people and one another in a socially intelligent manner using multimodal communicative behaviors with the goal to support humans in various domains.Written by international experts in their respective fields the book summarizes research in the many important research communities pertinent for SIAs while discussing current challenges and future directions. The handbook provides easy access to modeling and studying SIAs for researchers and students and aims at further bridging the gap between the research communities involved. In two volumes the book clearly structures the vast body of research. The first volume starts by introducing what is involved in SIAs research in particular research methodologies and ethical implications of developing SIAs. It further examines research on appearance and behavior focusing on multimodality. Finally social cognition for SIAs is investigated using different theoretical models and phenomena such as theory of mind or pro-sociality. The second volume starts with perspectives on interaction examined from different angles such as interaction in social space group interaction or long-term interaction. It also includes an extensive overview summarizing research and systems of human-agent platforms and of some of the major application areas of SIAs such as education aging support autism and games.

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents provides a comprehensive overview of the research fields of Embodied Conversational Agents, Intelligent Virtual Agents, and Social Robotics. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs), whether virtually or physically embodied, are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents, reason, decide how to interact, and express attitudes such as emotions, engagement, or empathy. They are capable of interacting with people and one another in a socially intelligent manner using multimodal communicative behaviors, with the goal to support humans in various domains. Written by international experts in their respective fields, the book summarizes research in the many important research communities pertinent for SIAs, while discussing current challenges and future directions. The handbook provides easy access to modeling and studying SIAs for researchers and students, and aims at further bridging the gap between the research communities involved. In two volumes, the book clearly structures the vast body of research. The first volume starts by introducing what is involved in SIAs research, in particular research methodologies and ethical implications of developing SIAs. It further examines research on appearance and behavior, focusing on multimodality. Finally, social cognition for SIAs is investigated using different theoretical models and phenomena such as theory of mind or pro-sociality. The second volume starts with perspectives on interaction, examined from different angles such as interaction in social space, group interaction, or long-term interaction. It also includes an extensive overview summarizing research and systems of human-agent platforms and of some of the major application areas of SIAs such as education, aging support, autism, and games.

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are autonomous software entities with human-like appearance and communication skills. These agents can take on a number of different roles, for example, as an assistant, tutor, information provider, or customer service agent. They may also simply represent or entertain a user.

The precise nature and benefits of different characteristics of ECAs requires careful investigation. Questions range from the function of an eyebrow raise to mechanisms for assessing and improving ECA trustworthiness.

This book will help experts and designers in the specification and development of applications incorporating ECAs. Part 1 provides guidelines for evaluation methodologies and the identification of design and evaluation parameters. Part 2 demonstrates the importance of considering the user's perspective and interaction experience. Part 3 addresses issues in fine-tuning design parameters of ECAs and verifying the perceived effect. Finally, in Part 4 lessons learned from a number of application case studies are presented.

The book is intended for both ECA researchers in academia and industry, and developers and designers interested in applying the technology.

Emotion pervades human life in general, and human communication in particular, and this sets information technology a challenge. Traditionally, IT has focused on allowing people to accomplish practical tasks efficiently, setting emotion to one side. That was acceptable when technology was a small part of life, but as technology and life become increasingly interwoven we can no longer ask people to suspend their emotional nature and habits when they interact with technology. The European Commission funded a series of related research projects on emotion and computing, culminating in the HUMAINE project which brought together leading academic researchers from the many related disciplines. This book grew out of that project, and its chapters are arranged according to its working areas: theories and models; signals to signs; data and databases; emotion in interaction; emotion in cognition and action; persuasion and communication; usability; and ethics and good practice. The fundamental aim of the book is to offer researchers an overview of the related areas, sufficient for them to do credible work on affective or emotion-oriented computing. The book serves as an academically sound introduction to the range of disciplines involved - technical, empirical and conceptual - and will be of value to researchers in the areas of artificial intelligence, psychology, cognition and user-machine interaction.

Emotion pervades human life in general, and human communication in particular, and this sets information technology a challenge. Traditionally, IT has focused on allowing people to accomplish practical tasks efficiently, setting emotion to one side. That was acceptable when technology was a small part of life, but as technology and life become increasingly interwoven we can no longer ask people to suspend their emotional nature and habits when they interact with technology. The European Commission funded a series of related research projects on emotion and computing, culminating in the HUMAINE project which brought together leading academic researchers from the many related disciplines. This book grew out of that project, and its chapters are arranged according to its working areas: theories and models; signals to signs; data and databases; emotion in interaction; emotion in cognition and action; persuasion and communication; usability; and ethics and good practice. The fundamental aim of the book is to offer researchers an overview of the related areas, sufficient for them to do credible work on affective or emotion-oriented computing. The book serves as an academically sound introduction to the range of disciplines involved - technical, empirical and conceptual - and will be of value to researchers in the areas of artificial intelligence, psychology, cognition and user-machine interaction.

This volume brings together the advanced research results obtained by the European COST Action 2102 "Cross Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication," primarily discussed at the PINK SSPnet-COST2102 International Conference on Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and Enactment: The Processing Issues, held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2010. The 40 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The volume is arranged into two scientific sections. The first section, Multimodal Signals: Analysis, Processing and Computational Issues, deals with conjectural and processing issues of defining models, algorithms, and heuristic strategies for data analysis, coordination of the data flow and optimal encoding of multi-channel verbal and nonverbal features. The second section, Verbal and Nonverbal Social Signals, presents original studies that provide theoretical and practical solutions to the modelling of timing synchronization between linguistic and paralinguistic expressions, actions, body movements, activities in human interaction and on their assistance for an effective human-machine interactions.

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are autonomous software entities with human-like appearance and communication skills. These agents can take on a number of different roles, for example, as an assistant, tutor, information provider, or customer service agent. They may also simply represent or entertain a user.

The precise nature and benefits of different characteristics of ECAs requires careful investigation. Questions range from the function of an eyebrow raise to mechanisms for assessing and improving ECA trustworthiness.

This book will help experts and designers in the specification and development of applications incorporating ECAs. Part 1 provides guidelines for evaluation methodologies and the identification of design and evaluation parameters. Part 2 demonstrates the importance of considering the user's perspective and interaction experience. Part 3 addresses issues in fine-tuning design parameters of ECAs and verifying the perceived effect. Finally, in Part 4 lessons learned from a number of application case studies are presented.

The book is intended for both ECA researchers in academia and industry, and developers and designers interested in applying the technology.

th Welcome to the proceedings of the 10 International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA), held 20-22 September, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Intelligent Virtual Agents are interactive characters that exhibit human-like qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as behavior, gesture, and speech. IVAs are capable of real-time perception, cognition, and action that allow them to participate in a dynamic physical and social environment. IVA 2010 is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main forum for prese- ing research on modeling, developing, and evaluating Intelligent Virtual Agents with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. The development of IVAs - quires expertise in multimodal interaction and several AI fields such as cognitive modeling, planning, vision, and natural language processing. Computational models are typically based on experimental studies and theories of human-human and hum- robot interaction; conversely, IVA technology may provide interesting lessons for these fields. Visualizations of IVAs require computer graphics and animation te- niques, and in turn supply significant realism problem domains for these fields. The realization of engaging IVAs is a challenging task, so reusable modules and tools are of great value. The fields of application range from robot assistants, social simulation, and tutoring to games and artistic exploration. The enormous challenges and diversity of possible applications of IVAs have - sulted in an established annual conference.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, IVA 2013, held in Edinburgh, UK, in August 2013. There was a total of 94 submissions. The 18 full and 18 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. In addition, the volume lists the 34 posters which were on display during the conference. The papers are organized in topical sections named: cognitive models; applications; dialogue, language, speech; non-verbal behaviour; and social, cultural models and agents.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents, IVA 2007, held in Paris, France, September 17-19, 2007.

The 19 revised full papers and 12 revised short papers presented together with 5 invited talks and the abstracts of 32 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 100 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Rendering and Analysis, Culture and Identity, Behavior Models, Feedback Models, Dialogues, Applications, Evaluation, Gaze models and Emotions.

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents provides a comprehensive overview of the research fields of Embodied Conversational Agents Intelligent Virtual Agents and Social Robotics. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs) whether virtually or physically embodied are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents reason decide how to interact and express attitudes such as emotions engagement or empathy. They are capable of interacting with people and one another in a socially intelligent manner using multimodal communicative behaviors with the goal to support humans in various domains.Written by international experts in their respective fields the book summarizes research in the many important research communities pertinent for SIAs while discussing current challenges and future directions. The handbook provides easy access to modeling and studying SIAs for researchers and students and aims at further bridging the gap between the research communities involved. In two volumes the book clearly structures the vast body of research. The first volume starts by introducing what is involved in SIAs research in particular research methodologies and ethical implications of developing SIAs. It further examines research on appearance and behavior focusing on multimodality. Finally social cognition for SIAs is investigated using different theoretical models and phenomena such as theory of mind or pro-sociality. The second volume starts with perspectives on interaction examined from different angles such as interaction in social space group interaction or long-term interaction. It also includes an extensive overview summarizing research and systems of human-agent platforms and of some of the major application areas of SIAs such as education aging support autism and games.

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents provides a comprehensive overview of the research fields of Embodied Conversational Agents, Intelligent Virtual Agents, and Social Robotics. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs), whether virtually or physically embodied, are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents, reason, decide how to interact, and express attitudes such as emotions, engagement, or empathy. They are capable of interacting with people and one another in a socially intelligent manner using multimodal communicative behaviors, with the goal to support humans in various domains. Written by international experts in their respective fields, the book summarizes research in the many important research communities pertinent for SIAs, while discussing current challenges and future directions. The handbook provides easy access to modeling and studying SIAs for researchers and students, and aims at further bridging the gap between the research communities involved. In two volumes, the book clearly structures the vast body of research. The first volume starts by introducing what is involved in SIAs research, in particular research methodologies and ethical implications of developing SIAs. It further examines research on appearance and behavior, focusing on multimodality. Finally, social cognition for SIAs is investigated using different theoretical models and phenomena such as theory of mind or pro-sociality. The second volume starts with perspectives on interaction, examined from different angles such as interaction in social space, group interaction, or long-term interaction. It also includes an extensive overview summarizing research and systems of human-agent platforms and of some of the major application areas of SIAs such as education, aging support, autism, and games.