HUMANOIDS

Humanoids (virtual such as Embodied Conversational Agents, ECAs in short, or human-like robots) are a powerful means of interaction between humans and machines. Nowadays, humanoid agents are being employed to provide information, explain pedagogical material, or sell products. But they promise even more; they can be the individualized, privileged companion of a user; they can be assisting and entertaining, and they can be emotive. By the simple fact of their human-like appearance and behavior, users tend to build up relationships with ECAs and human-like robots, just as they do with human folks. In order that the user perceives and accepts the ECA as a companion, the ECA too should maintain such a relationship. Tying and maintaining these bonds is highly related to the engagement between interactants. But engagement does not mean pervasiveness. Humanoids should not invade the user's working space, nor should they intervene at any time. Rather, they ought to gain the capability to determine when to intervene and for which reason. This workshop is particularly interested in this topic: how humanoids can create and maintain social and affective relationships with the user.

URL: http://www.iut.univ-paris8.fr/~pelachaud/AAMAS05

Organizers: Catherine Pelachaud (c.pelachaud@iut.univ-paris8.fr), Elisabeth Andre, Stefan Kopp, Zsofia Ruttkay