An ECA expressing appreciations.
Résumé
—In this paper, we propose a computational model
that provides an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) with the
ability to generate verbal other-repetition (repetitions of some
of the words uttered in the previous user speaker turn) when
interacting with a user in a museum setting. We focus on the
generation of other-repetitions expressing emotional stances in
appreciation sentences. Emotional stances and their semantic
features are selected according to the user’s verbal input, and
ECA’s utterance is generated according to these features. We
present an evaluation of this model through users’ subjective
reports. Results indicate that the expression of emotional stances
by the ECA has a positive effect on user engagement, and that
ECA’s behaviours are rated as more believable by users when
the ECA utters other-repetitions.