Dynamic movement and positioning of embodied agents in multiparty conversations

For embodied agents to engage in realistic multiparty conversation, they must stand in appropriate places with respect to other agents and the environment. When these factors change, such as an agent joining the conversation, the agents must dynamically move to a new location and/or orientation to accommodate. This paper presents an algorithm for simulating movement of agents based on observed human behavior using techniques developed for pedestrian movement in crowd simulations. We extend a previous group conversation simulation to include an agent motion algorithm. We examine several test cases and show how the simulation generates results that mirror real-life conversation settings. Categories and Subject Descriptors I.2.11 [Artificial Intelligence]: Distributed Artificial Intelligence; I.6.3 [Simulation and Modeling]: Applications General Terms Algorithms,Experimentation Keywords embodied conversational agents, proxemics, multiparty conversation, social interaction, simulation

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Dusan Jan, David R. Traum
• Keywords: ATAL 2007, Group Conversation Simulation, Multiparty Conversation, Realistic Multiparty Conversation