FearNot! The use of empathy towards autonomous agents for education purpose Sibylle Enz, Carsten Zoll, Harald Schaub Universität Bamberg 6 th German Workshop on Artificial Life Apr 15-16, 2004

Content 1.FearNot! Fun with Empathic Agents Reaching Novel Outcomes in Teaching 2.The Bullying Problem 3.Empathy and it’s role for FearNot! Character Believability & Empathy Character Believability & Empathy Empathy in FearNot! Empathy in FearNot! 1.Designing Empathic Agents 2.Promoting Empathy in the User: The First Person Shooter Experiment 4.Designing FearNot! Characters 1.Designing Empathic Agents 2.Promoting Empathy in the User 5.FearNot! Structure 6.Speech Acts 7.Evaluation

(1) FearNot! Fun with Empathic Agents Reaching Novel Outcomes in Teaching Final product of the EU Framework V project VICTEC Innovative intervention approach for bullying in schools Experience of bullying incidents for children aged 8-12 in a Virtual Learning Environment Believability of scenarios and character behaviours Educational goal: awareness for bullying and reduction of bullying behaviour

(1)The Partners Centre for Virtual Environments, University of Salford (UK) University of Hertfordshire (UK) Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores (INESC-ID) (Portugal) Autor, Tecnologias Multimédia S.A. (Portugal) Institute of Theoretical Psychology, University of Bamberg (Germany)

(2) The Bullying Problem (2) The Bullying Problem Repeated negative action that occurs regularly over time with the intention to hurt; imbalance of power between pupils (Olweus, 1999) Main types of bullying behaviour: direct/physical (punching, kicking, …) direct/physical (punching, kicking, …) verbal (nasty name calling) verbal (nasty name calling) relational (social exclusion, rumour spreading) relational (social exclusion, rumour spreading) Bullying roles: bully, victim, bully-victim, bystander Intervention initiatives: limited success in reducing bullying problems  innovative approach needed

(3) Empathy and it’s Role for FearNot! Believable scenarios: collaboration with schoolsBelievable scenarios: collaboration with schools Believable characters:Believable characters: Design: cartoon characters instead of almost realistic characters (“uncanny valley”; Mori, 1978 ) Design: cartoon characters instead of almost realistic characters (“uncanny valley”; Mori, 1978 ) Autonomy: agents act autonomously “creating” stories runtime (emergent narrative) Autonomy: agents act autonomously “creating” stories runtime (emergent narrative) Personality: coherent behaviour based on personality parameters Personality: coherent behaviour based on personality parameters Empathy Empathy

(3) Empathy and it’s Role for FearNot! Changes in the internal state of an “observer” due to the perceived internal state of a “target” Cognitive Empathy: Cognitive Empathy: Observer knows the internal state of the target Affective Empathy: Affective Empathy: Observer feels something due to the perception of the internal state of the target Ideomotoric Empathy: Ideomotoric Empathy: Motoric pre-activation within the observer due to perception of target movement

(3) Empathy and it’s Role for FearNot! 1 ) promoting empathic relationships between user and character 2) designing empathic agents

Empathy towards Virtual Agents – The FPS Experiment First Person-Shooter Doom: Player experiences the 3D virtual world through the eyes of the hero while killing monsters

The FPS Experiment - Research Questions Does empathy play a role in player – agent relationship? How does empathy affect the virtual aggressive behaviour?

The FPS Experiment Development of FPS using „3D gamestudio“ software game duration, protocols, experimental manipulation of opponent design game duration, protocols, experimental manipulation of opponent design Game parameters: number of killed opponents, number of objects, duration, life energy number of killed opponents, number of objects, duration, life energySample: 30 subjects (10 male, 20 female) 30 subjects (10 male, 20 female) age (M=22.4; SD=3.56) age (M=22.4; SD=3.56)

The FPS Experiment - Opponents Humans Box Cartoon Robots

The FPS Experiment - Experimental Design Initial Diagnosis Neo-FFI, TMMS, Empathy Scale, Aggression, Competence 1. Game Subjects are randomly assigned to one of the opponents (Box, Cartoon, Humans, Robots) 2. Game Free choice of opponent Interview Questions on the experiment, on empathy, on the opponents etc.

The FPS Experiment

The FPS Experiment - Results Highly empathic subjects empathize more with (human-like) opponents  Choice of opponent, scruples Affective/Cognitive Empathy: no influence on successful playing  Importance of emotional expression for empathic processes Ideomotoric Empathy: positively correlated with success  Anticipation of opponents’ motoric action

(4) Designing FearNot! Characters (4) Designing FearNot! Characters 1) promoting empathic relationships between user and character Similarity: facilitates empathic processes Similarity: facilitates empathic processes Emotional expression: facial and body expression, speech acts Emotional expression: facial and body expression, speech acts Situation: higher-order control mechanism to allow for reasonable episode sequencing Situation: higher-order control mechanism to allow for reasonable episode sequencing 2) designing empathic agents agent acts in empathic way towards other agents agent acts in empathic way towards other agents agent architecture agent architecture

(4) FearNot! Characters (4) FearNot! Characters JohnMartinaLuke

(4.2) Designing Empathic Agents Agent Requirements: recognise other agents’ states by emotional expressions express emotions by voice, facial/body expressions “have” emotions that are linked with action

(4.2) Designing Empathic Agents

Actions Joy: smile, laugh, dance Joy: smile, laugh, dance Happy-For: felicitate, encourage Happy-For: felicitate, encourage Sorry-For: apologise, encourage, protect Sorry-For: apologise, encourage, protect Anger: ignore, hit, aggress, avoid, humiliate Anger: ignore, hit, aggress, avoid, humiliate Distress: cry, sit on the floor, beg Distress: cry, sit on the floor, beg Speech Acts Speech Acts

Semi-realistic (3D) school environment Adaptable to different situations: country; gender; rural/urban; large/small school Must run on school computers Must enable evaluation process (5) FearNot! Requirements

(5) FearNot! Creating Bullying Scenarios Development of physical & relational bullying scenarios using software 'Kar2ouche’  Bullying incidents are episodic by nature  Inspired by “real” bullying situations: cooperation with schools

(5) FearNot! Structure Episodes: Watching unfolding bullying events Introspection Phase: Communication with the victimized character Trailer

(6) Speech Acts Specific challenges: bullying context & cross-cultural implementation Agents interact using discrete actions, within a reception / appraisal / selection loop: common representation Speech Acts consist of Semantic info: the meaning of utterance Semantic info: the meaning of utterance Function: the purpose of the utterance Function: the purpose of the utterance

(6) Speech Acts Predefined set of speech acts Classified alongside intended actions: threat, apology, insult Use of templates for each speech act Template:<GreetingWord><Name?><StatusQuestion?> Language Act: Tom Luke Tom Luke Yields: Hello Luke, how are you?

(6) Speech Acts (6) Speech Acts The FearNot! language action knowledge base HELP Enquiry about emotional state Help offer Advice regarding problems Protection AssistanceCONFRONTATION Altercation Physical bullying expressions Threats, insults, orders, aggressive behaviourSOCIALISING Social discussions Relational bullying (exclusion patterns)

(6) Speech Acts Wizard of Oz Experiment User-agent-interaction Goal: collecting utterances and spelling mistakes that are typically used by the target group Method: child user “interacts” with the victim character (= wizard) providing advice Sample: 8 German pupils (4♂; 4♀) aged 8-10

(6) Wizard of Oz Experiment: Example Dialogue WizardChild Hello. My name is Hans. What is your name? Tobias I have a problem: Luke keeps bullying and hitting me. What can I do? Next time you hit him back in the face and make him cry. I already tried that, I’m afraid… it didn’t work out too well. Then take something of him and break it. Why do you think this would help? Then he would realize what he keeps doing to you. And if he gets back at me? Then just go and tell the teacher… …Thank you very much for your help! Bye, Tobias!

Evaluation Design – Main Interest Does the software meet the technical and usability requirements? Does the interaction with FearNot affect children’s (views on) bullying behaviour? Can FearNot help to improve the empathic abilities of the child users? Do children actually develop empathy towards the characters in the scenarios?

VICTEC Trailer Evaluation Goal: evaluation of likeability of the 3-D characters likeability of the 3-D characters believability of the bullying scenarios believability of the bullying scenarios empathic feelings created between the child user and the animated characters empathic feelings created between the child user and the animated characters Results: (UK sample) children like cartoon characters children like cartoon characters 68% of children reported high story believability 68% of children reported high story believability physical attributes of the characters rated as unbelievable by some children, but no negative impact on story engagement & believability physical attributes of the characters rated as unbelievable by some children, but no negative impact on story engagement & believability

Further information on the project… Ruth Aylett (project coordinator) Sibylle Enz, Carsten Zoll, Harald Schaub The Project Website