Abstract
The goal of this paper is to integrate culture as a computational term in embodied conversational agents by employing an empirical data-driven approach as well as a theoretical model-driven approach. We propose a parameter-based model that predicts nonverbal expressions appropriate for specific cultures. First, we introduce the Hofstede theory to describe socio-cultural characteristics of each country. Then, based on the previous studies in cultural differences of nonverbal behaviors, we propose expressive parameters to characterize nonverbal behaviors. Finally, by integrating socio-cultural characteristics and nonverbal expressive characteristics, we establish a Bayesian network model that predicts posture expressiveness from a country name, and vice versa.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Rehm, M., et al.: Creating a Standardized Corpus of Multimodal Interactions for Enculturating Conversational Interfaces. In: Proceedings of Workshop on Enculturating Conversational Interfaces by Socio-cultural Aspects of Communication, 2008 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2008) (2008)
Rehm, M., et al.: Too close for comfort? Adapting to the user’s cultural background. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Human-Centered Multimedia (HCM), Augsburg (2007)
Bull, P.E.: Posture and Gesture. Pergamon Press, Oxford (1987)
Nass, C., Isbister, K., Lee, E.: Truth is Beauty Researching Embodied Conversational Agents. In: Cassell, J., et al. (eds.) Embodied Conversational Agents, pp. 374–402. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
Ting-Toomey, S.: Communication Across Culture. The Guildford Press, New York (1999)
GeeNIe and SMILE, http://genie.sis.pitt.edu/
Hofstede, http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstededimensions.php
Lee, E.-J., Nass, C.: Does the ethnicity of a computer agent matter? An experimental comparison of human-computer interaction and computer-mediated communication. In: Prevost, S., Churchill, E. (eds.) Proceedings of the workshop on Embodied Conversational characters (1998)
Isbister, K.: Building Bridges through the Unspoken: Embodied Agents to facilitate intercultural communication. In: Payr, S., Trappl, R. (eds.) Agent Culture: Human –Agent Interaction in a Multicultural World, pp. 233–244. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2004)
Johnson, W., et al.: Tactical Language Training System: Supporting the Rapid Acquisition of Foreign Language and Cultural Skills. In: Proc. of InSTIL/ICALL - NLP and Speech Technologies in Advanced Language Learning Systems (2004)
Iacobelli, F., Cassell, J.: Ethnic Identity and Engagement in Embodied Conversational agents. In: Pelachaud, C., Martin, J.-C., André, E., Chollet, G., Karpouzis, K., Pelé, D. (eds.) IVA 2007. LNCS, vol. 4722, pp. 57–63. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Maniar, N., Bennett, E.: Designing a mobile game to reduce cultural shock. In: Proceedings of ACE 2007, pp. 252–253 (2007)
Efron, D.: Gesture, Race and Culture. Mouton and Co. (1972)
Gallaher, P.E.: Individual Differences in Nonverbal Behavior; Dimension of style. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63819, 133–145 (1992)
Hartmann, B., Mancini, M., Buisine, S., Pelachaud, C.: Design and evaluation of expressive gesture synthesis for embodied conversational agents. In: Proceedings of the fourth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems, pp. 1095–1096 (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Akhter Lipi, A., Nakano, Y., Rehm, M. (2009). A Parameter-Based Model for Generating Culturally Adaptive Nonverbal Behaviors in Embodied Conversational Agents. In: Stephanidis, C. (eds) Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Intelligent and Ubiquitous Interaction Environments. UAHCI 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5615. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02710-9_70
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02710-9_70
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02709-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02710-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)