Interaction Strategies for an Affective Conversational Agent

Smith, Cameron; Crook, Nigel T.; Boye, Johan; Charlton, Daniel; Dobnik, Simon; Pizzi, David; Cavazza, Marc; Pulman, Stephen; Cámara, Raúl Santos de la; Turunen, Markku

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-15892-6_31

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…They play a major role in human-agent conversation (Smith et al 2011). Although actual competence might encourage communication, it is the perception of competence that ultimately determines the L2 learner's choice to communicate (Clément et al 2003).…”

Section: Affective Backchannelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adding Communicative and Affective Strategies to an Embodied Conversational Agent to Enhance Second Language Learners’ Willingness to Communicate

Ayedoun

Hayashi

Seta

2018

Int J Artif Intell Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper describes an embodied conversational agent enhanced with specific conversational strategies aiming to foster learners' readiness towards communication in a second language (L2). Willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language is believed to have a direct and sustained influence on learners' actual usage frequency of the target language. To help overcome the lack of suitable environments for increasing L2 learners' WTC, our approach is to build embodied conversational agents that can help learners surmount their apprehension towards communication in L2. Here, we focus on the dialogue management aspects of our approach and propose a model based on a set of communication strategies (CS) and affective backchannels (AB) to foster such agents' ability to carry on natural and WTC-friendly conversations with learners. We examined learners' expected WTC after interacting with one of the following versions of the system: an agent featuring both CS and AB; an agent featuring only CS; and an agent featuring only AB. The results suggested that combining CS and AB empowers the conversational agent and leads to higher expected WTC among L2 learners. We also found that even the AB-only version of the system had the potential to enhance WTC to some extent. These findings are evidence of the feasibility of enhancing L2 learners' engagement towards communication using a computer-based environment coupled with appropriate conversational strategies.

show abstract

Section: Affective Backchannelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adding Communicative and Affective Strategies to an Embodied Conversational Agent to Enhance Second Language Learners’ Willingness to Communicate

Ayedoun

Hayashi

Seta

2018

Int J Artif Intell Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There have been some studies that tackle design related issues on the topic of interactions, e.g., dialogue keeping; however, these developments still examine only interaction between an affective system and a user [21].…”

Section: Design Related Issues In Affective Masmentioning

confidence: 99%

General Guidelines for Design of Affective Multi-Agent Systems

Pudāne

Lavendelis

2017

Applied Computer Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

-The paper presents general guidelines for designing affective multi-agent systems (affective MASs). The guidelines aim at extending the existing agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) methodologies to enable them to design affective MASs. The reason why affective mechanisms need specific attention during the design is the fact that the way how both rational tasks and interactions are done differ based on the affective state of the agents. Thus, the paper extends the traditional design approaches with the design of affective mechanisms and includes them in the design of the system as a whole.

show abstract

“…the OCC model in EMMA [82], the nine emotions including the Big-Six in Emoheart [31], or other different user emotional states [83] (that are actually a distinction between neutral, polite and frustrated). Also [84] proposes a classification between positive vs. negative user sentiment as an input of humanagent interaction. Positive vs. negative classifications overlap with the representation of sentiment in the valence axis, as previously explained in Section 2.2.…”

Section: Ecas Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Sentiment Analysis: From Opinion Mining to Human-Agent Interaction

Clavel

Callejas

2016

IEEE Trans. Affective Comput.

133

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The opinion mining and human-agent interaction communities are currently addressing sentiment analysis from different perspectives that comprise, on the one hand, disparate sentiment-related phenomena and computational representations, and on the other hand, different detection and dialog management methods. In this paper we identify and discuss the growing opportunities for cross-disciplinary work that may increase individual advances. Sentiment/opinion detection methods used in human-agent interaction are indeed rare and, when they are employed, they are not different from the ones used in opinion mining and consequently not designed for socio-affective interactions (timing constraint of the interaction, sentiment analysis as an input and an output of interaction strategies). To support our claims, we present a comparative state of the art which analyzes the sentiment-related phenomena and the sentiment detection methods used in both communities and makes an overview of the goals of socio-affective human-agent strategies. We propose then different possibilities for mutual benefit, specifying several research tracks and discussing the open questions and prospects. To show the feasibility of the general guidelines proposed we also approach them from a specific perspective by applying them to the case of the Greta embodied conversational agents platform and discuss the way they can be used to make a more significative sentiment analysis for human-agent interactions in two different use cases: job interviews and dialogs with museum visitors.Index Terms-Sentiment analysis, opinion mining, embodied conversational agents (ECAs), human-agent interaction, affect, emotion, socio-affective interaction ! • C. Clavel is with the Institut Mines-Télécom, Télécom ParisTech,

show abstract

Interaction Strategies for an Affective Conversational Agent

Cited by 16 publications

References 16 publications

Adding Communicative and Affective Strategies to an Embodied Conversational Agent to Enhance Second Language Learners’ Willingness to Communicate

Adding Communicative and Affective Strategies to an Embodied Conversational Agent to Enhance Second Language Learners’ Willingness to Communicate

General Guidelines for Design of Affective Multi-Agent Systems

Sentiment Analysis: From Opinion Mining to Human-Agent Interaction

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About