Embodied Interfaces Many people assume that embodied agents (i.e. virtual humans) will enhance HCI as they can…. take advantage of pre-existing social skills (e.g. body language) make an interaction more natural However, research in this area has failed (to date) to clarify this Embodied agents that have been developed to date are often of poor quality

My Research Investigating psychological responses to embodied agents (in particular, responses to emotion simulation) Do we respond to a synthetic smile in a similar way to a human smile? How do we respond to synthetic displays of empathy? Can we catch emotions from computers? An embodied nutritional coach has been built… Will attempt to help motivate people to eat more healthily Will make use of techniques that human health professionals often use Experiments will be conducted over both short and long-term interactions

Reality Based Interaction The more realistic an embodied agent is the more effective communication should be Realistic agents should be able to make use of body language and social cues to enhance communication However, this doesn’t necessarily mean people will prefer interacting with realistic virtual humans… Users may feel uncomfortable Other agent representations may be preferred (e.g. caricatures, abstract virtual humans) Degree of agent realism is important A more realistic interaction may not always enhance HCI