The UTEP AGENT System
Demonstrations
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Novick, David
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Sepulveda, Iván Gris
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Rivera, Diego A.
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Camacho, Adriana
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Rayon, Alex
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Gutierrez, Mario
Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction
2015-11-09
p.383-384
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: This paper describes a system for embodied conversational agents (ECAs)
developed at the University of Texas at El Paso by the Advanced aGent
ENgagement Team (AGENT) and one of the applications -- Survival on Jungle
Island -- built with this system. In the Jungle application, the ECA and a
human interact with speech and gesture for approximately 40 -- 60 minutes in a
game composed of 23 scenes (to maintain the demonstration feasible,
participants will interact only with select scenes that showcase the
capabilities of our system). Each scene comprises a collection of speech input,
speech output, gesture input, gesture output, scenery, triggers, and decision
points.
Animation Guidelines for Believable Embodied Conversational Agent Gestures
Agents and Robots in Virtual Environments
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Gris, Ivan
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Rivera, Diego A.
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Novick, David
VAMR 2015: 7th International Conference on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed
Reality
2015-08-02
p.197-205
Keywords: Embodied conversational agents; Animation; Usability
© Copyright 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
Summary: In animating embodied conversational agents (ECAs), run-time blending of
animations can provide a large library of movements that increases the
appearance of naturalness while decreasing the number of animations to be
developed. This approach avoids the need to develop a costly full library of
possible animations in advance of use. Our principal scientific contribution is
the development of a model for gesture constraints that enables blended
animations to represent naturalistic movement. Rather than creating
over-detailed, fine-grained procedural animations or hundreds of
motion-captured animation files, animators can include sets of their own
animations for agents, blend them, and easily reuse animations, while
constraining the ECA to use motions that would occur and transition naturally.
A Mark-Up Language and Interpreter for Interactive Scenes for Embodied
Conversational Agents
Agents and Robots in Virtual Environments
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Novick, David
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Gutierrez, Mario
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Gris, Ivan
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Rivera, Diego A.
VAMR 2015: 7th International Conference on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed
Reality
2015-08-02
p.206-215
Keywords: Embodied conversational agents; Scene; Interpreter; Parser
© Copyright 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
Summary: Our research seeks to provide embodied conversational agents (ECAs) with
behaviors that enable them to build and maintain rapport with human users. To
conduct this research, we need to build agents and systems that can maintain
high levels of engagement with humans over multiple interaction sessions. These
sessions can potentially extend to longer periods of time to examine long-term
effects of the virtual agent's behaviors. Our current ECA interacts with humans
in a game called "Survival on Jungle Island." Throughout this game, users
interact with our agent across several scenes. Each scene is composed of a
collection of speech input, speech output, gesture input, gesture output,
scenery, triggers, and decision points. Our prior system was developed with
procedural code, which did not lend itself to rapid extension to new game
scenes. So to enable effective authoring of the scenes for the "Jungle" game,
we adopted a declarative approach. We developed ECA middleware that parses,
interprets, and executes XML files that define the scenes. This paper presents
the XML coding scheme and its implementation and describes the functional
back-end enabled by the scene scripts.
Water, Temperature and Proximity Sensing for a Mixed Reality Art
Installation
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Rudomin, Isaac
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Diaz, Marissa
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Hernández, Benjamín
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Rivera, Daniel
Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on INtelligent TEchnologies
for interactive enterTAINment
2005-11-30
p.155-163
© Copyright 2005 Springer-Verlag
Summary: "Fluids" is an interactive and immersive mixed reality art installation that
explores the relation of intimacy between reality and virtuality. We live in
two different but connected worlds: our physical environment and virtual space.
In this paper we discuss how we integrated them by using water and air as
interfaces. We also discuss how we designed mechanisms for natural and subtle
navigation between and within the different environments of the piece, how we
designed the environments and the installation so as to take advantage of the
low cost alternatives that are available today.
The Effect of Information Overhead On Perceived Workload and Learning
COMPUTER SYSTEMS: Input Methods and Display Design
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Rivera, Diego
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 49th Annual Meeting
2005-09-26
v.49
p.666-670
© Copyright 2005 HFES
Summary: E-commerce sites today contain variety product information to inform
shoppers about a company's products offerings. Although the number of
attributes used to describe products depends on the product being described,
attributes can be in the hundreds. One of the key business challenges is to
maintain the ever increasing product information up-to-date. It is important
that data management tools used for these tasks are efficient and easy to use.
The present study describes the effect of information overhead on perceived
workload. Participants were asked to create 20 different products using four
different web prototypes that varied in content density and customization
capability. Mean time on task over 20 trials was fit using a power function and
perceived workload was collected using NASA Task Load Index. The results
obtained indicate that unused information does increase perceived workload and
negatively affect performance. Also, that UI customization can help reduce
perceived workload and allow users to reach peak performance faster. Finally,
participants performed faster and with higher satisfaction under the
customization conditions.
The effect of content customization on learnability and perceived workload
Late breaking results: short papers
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Rivera, Diego
Proceedings of ACM CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2005-04-02
v.2
p.1749-1752
© Copyright 2005 ACM
Summary: One of the key e-commerce challenges is to maintain an increasing amount of
information up-to-date. This is a challenging task because frequently there is
a substantial amount of data being created under tight deadlines. It is
important that data management tools used for these tasks are efficient and
easy to use. The present study describes the effect of UI content customization
on learnability and perceived workload. Participants were asked to create 20
different products using four different web prototypes that varied in content
density and customization capability. Mean time on task over 20 trials was fit
using a power function and perceived workload was collected using NASA Task
Load Index. The results obtained indicate that content customization allows
users to reach peak performance faster and reduce task learning. Also, content
customization reduces perceived mental demand and frustration as content
density increases. Finally, participants performed faster and with higher
satisfaction under the customization conditions.
Efficiency Assessment of an E-Commerce Data Management Tool Using Learning
Curves
COMPUTER SYSTEMS: Systems and Usability
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Rivera, Diego
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting
2004-09-20
v.48
p.902-906
© Copyright 2004 HFES
Summary: Learning curves for e-commerce data management tasks were computed to assess
UI efficiency. Participants were asked to update product information using an
e-commerce data management tool. Mean time on task over 20 trials of the same
task was fit using a power function. Learning curves of 92.7% to 97.6% were
found for two product update tasks. The results obtained indicate that making
efficiency judgments based on the first few trials will produce higher learning
coefficients that actually exist, and suggest that practitioners should not
assume that time on task will always decrease significantly with increased
practice. It also shows how properties of learning curves can help in the
analysis of UI efficiency.
Designing Soft Controls for Process Control
1: COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS: Cognitive Engineering Design [Research]
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Rivera, Diego Y.
Proceedings of the Joint IEA 14th Triennial Congress and Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society 44th Annual Meeting
2000-07-30
v.44
n.1
p.120-123
© Copyright 2000 HFES
Summary: The design of soft controls involves understanding the control
characteristic of process components, identifying the cognitive tasks involved
in executing control actions and then selecting the appropriate process
information required to support operators in performing these tasks. Based on
this analysis, soft control windows should be designed to include physical and
functional support information, control preconditions and the alarm state of
all indications. This information should be integrated with the current state
of the equipment and its associated control mechanisms.
