Abstract
We sought to create a social embodied conversational agent to support group interactions, using 'balance theory' from social science research on human-human relations. We conducted an experiment to evaluate the social ECA's effectiveness in a group situation, depending upon how strongly it mediated the conversation among group members. First, we confirmed that it could win favorable feelings from subjects by showing an agreeing attitude to them and, conversely, unfavorable feelings by showing a disagreeing attitude. Next, we validated balance theory as a rule governing both agent-human relations and human relations if the social ECA highly mediated the conversation. We found that the social ECA's effectiveness was very low if it did not control turn-taking, and if the human pair had a chance to converse extensively with one another. Conversation analysis corroborated these results.
| Original language | English |
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| Pages | 717-724 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Publication status | Published - 2003 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | Proceedings of the Second International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 03 - Melbourne, Vic., Australia Duration: 2003 Jul 14 → 2003 Jul 18 |
Conference
| Conference | Proceedings of the Second International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 03 |
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| Country/Territory | Australia |
| City | Melbourne, Vic. |
| Period | 03/7/14 → 03/7/18 |
Keywords
- Agent-mediated communities
- Balance theory
- Embodied conversational agents
- Social ECAs
- Virtual communities
- Virtual environments
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Engineering(all)