What Comes After Telepresence? Embodiment, Social Presence and Transporting One’s Functional and Social Self

Advances in robotics and multisensory displays allow extending telepresence ambitions beyond only “the feeling of being present at a remote location”. In this paper, we discuss what may lie beyond telepresence and how we can transport both the functional and social self of a user. We introduce the embodiment illusion and its potential...

Deep Learning Augmented Realistic Avatars for Social VR Human Representation

Friendship with a robot: Children's perception of similarity between a robot's physical and virtual embodiment that supports diabetes self-management

Objective: The PAL project develops a conversational agent with a physical (robot) and virtual (avatar) embodiment to support diabetes self-management of children ubiquitously. This paper assesses 1) the effect of perceived similarity between robot and avatar on children's' friendship towards the avatar, and 2) the effect of this friendship on...

Self-explanations of a cognitive agent by citing goals and emotions

This paper presents a cognitive (belief-desireintention based) agent that can self-explain its behaviour based on its goals and emotions. We implement a cognitive agent, embodied by a nao-robot or virtual avatar thereof, to play a quiz with its user. During the interaction the agent intelligently selects questions to optimally educate the user....

Dutch Public Broadcaster NPO’s Signing Avatar Makes a Gesture (pt.2)

In 2012, the Research and Development (R&D) team at NPO was asked: “What is the state of the art on automated sign production?” We decided to take a closer look and lead a market consultation on the topic. Below is Part 2 of a two-part series. To access Part 1, see our previous issue: https://tech.ebu.ch/publications/ebu-tech-i-26

Design and Development of a Physical and a Virtual Embodied Conversational Agent for Social Support of Older Adults

Populations in developed societies show an increasingly higher life expectancy across the globe. To support older adults to live longer and healthier lives in the familiar surroundings of their homes, technological developments, such as robots and avatars, have a great potential. To investigate long-term interactions between older adults and a ...

Dutch Public Broadcaster NPO’s Signing Avatar Makes a Gesture

Grooming: 12 is het nieuwe 16 en vaker dan je denkt

Kinderen worden regelmatig seksueel benaderd. Tijdens een onderzoeksproject voor een van onze opdrachtgevers loggen we in op Habbo-hotel. Tot onze verbazing worden we al snel meerdere keren benaderd met seksueel getinte opmerkingen. Die laten weinig aan de verbeelding over. Daar schrik je van. En het is verontrustend. Vooral omdat dit sociale...

The ten rules of touch: Guidelines for social agents and robots that can touch

Touching is essential in interpersonal and affective communication, yet most social agents lack the capability to touch the user. In this paper we show the credibility of three premises that make the case that providing touch capability to social robots will increase their effectiveness in communicating emotions, building trust and achieving...

Internet-delivered multi-patient virtual reality exposure therapy system for the treatment of anxiety disorders

Motivation - The project is to reduce the therapist's workload in virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) for anxiety disorders and explore cognitive ergonomic factors in the design of an internet-delivered multi-patient treatment system. Research questions - The aim can be achieved by system improvement on both the patient side and the...

User-centered design with illiterate persons: The case of the ATM user interface

One of the major challenges in current user interface research and development is the accommodation of diversity in users and contexts of use in order to improve the self-efficacy of citizens. A common banking service, which should be designed for diversity, is the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). This paper describes the various user-centered...

Cognitive model supported tactical training simulation

Simulation-based tactical training can be made more effective by using cognitive software agents to play key roles (e.g. team mate, adversaries, instructor). Due to the dynamic and complex nature of military tactics, it is hard to create agents that behave realistically and support the training leader in keeping control over the scenario. For...