| 1. |
- Chilufya, Emma Mainza, 1986-, et al.
(author)
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The Black Box of Virtual Agent Design: A Literature Review of User Involvement at the IVA Conference
- 2021
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The field of Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) has evolved immensely with respect to design and development of agents over the years. This has brought the following questions: What processes and methods are used to design virtual agents, and in particular, to what extent and how are users involved in the design process of virtual agents? In this paper, we review papers from the conference “Intelligent Virtual Agents” for the last five years (2015 - 2019) to shed light on these questions. The review included 308 short and long papers, with a focus on the interactive aspects of design. The review showed that only 14% of 308 papers explicitly mentioned/referred to user participation during the design of an IVA. User involvement is classified into two categories: one-time and iterative. The few studies that mention design only report on the use of standard Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design methods to a rather limited degree.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Flycht-Eriksson (Silvervarg), Annika
(author)
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A Survey of Knowledge Sources in Dialogue Systems
- 1999
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In: Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence. - : Linköping University Electronic Press. - 1403-3534. ; 3:2, s. 5-32
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Dialogue systems utilise a variety of knowledge sources and models. However, there is a confusion concerning the purposes and contributions of specific models and the relationships among them. In this paper we present a study of different dialogue systems and the knowledge sources and models they use. The models are characterised in terms of what knowledge they contain and the roles of various models and the relations between them are discussed. Implications for development of dialogue systems are also presented.
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| 4. |
- Flycht-Eriksson (Silvervarg), Annika, 1974-
(author)
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Design and use of ontologies in information-providing dialogue systems
- 2004
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis, the design and use of ontologies as domain knowledge sources in information-providing dialogue systems are investigated. The research is divided into two parts, theoretical investigations that have resulted in a requirements specifications on the design of ontologies to be used in information-providing dialogue systems, and empirical work on the development of a framework for use of ontologies in information-providing dialogue systems.The framework includes three models: A model for ontology-based semantic analysis of questions. A model for ontology-based dialogue management, specifically focus management and clarifications. A model for ontology-based domain knowledge management, specifically transformation of user requests to system oriented concepts used for information retrieval.In this thesis, it is shown that using ontologies to represent and reason on domain knowledge in dialogue systems has several advantages. A deeper semantic analysis is possible in several modules and a more natural and efficient dialogue can be achieved. Another important aspect is that it facilitates portability; to be able to reuse adapt the dialogue system to new tasks and domains, since the domain-specific knowledge is separated form generic features in the dialogue system architecture. Other advantages are that it reduces the complexity of linguistic produced in various domains.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Flycht-Eriksson (Silvervarg), Annika, 1974-
(author)
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Domain Knowledge Management in Information-providing Dialogue Systems
- 2001
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this thesis a new concept called domain knowledge management for informationproviding dialogue systems is introduced. Domain knowledge management includes issues related to representation and use of domain knowledge as well as access of background information sources, issues that previously have been incorporated in dialogue management.The work on domain knowledge management reported in this thesis can be divided in two parts. On a general theoretical level, knowledge sources and models used for dialogue management, including domain knowledge management, are studied and related to the capabilities they support. On a more practical level, domain knowledge management is examined in the contexts of a dialogue system framework and a specific instance of this framework, the ÖTRAF system. In this system domain knowledge management is implemented in a separate module, a Domain Knowledge Manager.The use of a specialised Domain Knowledge Manager has a number of advantages. The first is that dialogue management becomes more focused as it only has to consider dialogue phenomena, while domain-specific reasoning is handled by the Domain Knowledge Manager. Secondly, porting of a system to new domains is facilitated since domain-related issues are separated out in specialised domain knowledge sources. The third advantage with a separate module for domain knowledge management is that domain knowledge sources can be easily modified, exchanged, and reused.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Flycht-Eriksson (Silvervarg), Annika, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Perseverance Is crucial for learning. “OK! but Can I take a break?”
- 2018
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In: Artificial Intelligence in Education - 19th International Conference, AIED 2018, Proceedings. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 1611-3349 .- 0302-9743. - 9783319938424 ; 10947 LNAI, s. 532-544
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In a study with 108 10- to 12-year-olds who used a digital educational game targeting history, we addressed the phenomenon of perseverance, that is, the tendency to stick with a task even when it is challenging. The educational game was designed to make all students encounter tasks they did not succeed to solve, at which point they were offered a set of choices corresponding to perseverance and non-perseverance. Methods used were behavioral log data, post-questionnaires, and an in-game questionnaire conducted by a game character, who asked the students about the reason for their choice. Overall, we found no differences between high and low-perseverance students as to their experiences of effort, difficulty, and learning, and neither in their self-reported motives for persevering – when doing so. With respect to performance, however, high-persevering students solved significantly more tasks at higher difficulty levels. Comparing high-perseverance students who tended to take a break directly after a failed test – before they continued with the same task – with those who did not take a break, we found no significant differences, indicating that taking a break is not detrimental to learning and perseverance.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Gulz, Agneta, et al.
(author)
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Building a Social Conversational Pedagogical Agent : Design Challenges and Methodological approaches
- 2011
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In: Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction. - : IGI Global. - 9781609606176 - 9781609606183 ; , s. 128-155
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This chapter discusses design challenges encountered when developing a conversational pedagogical agent. By tracing the historical roots of pedagogical agents in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), we discern central developments in creating an agent that is both knowledgeable and fosters a social relationship with the learner. Main challenges faced when attempting to develop a pedagogical agent of this kind relate to: i) learners’ expectations on the agent’s knowledge and social profile, ii) dealing with learners’ engagement in off-task conversation and iii) managing potential abuse of the agent. We discuss these challenges and possible ways to address them, with reference to an ongoing Research & Development project, and with a focus on the design of a pedagogical agent’s visual embodiment and its conversational capabilities.
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| 11. |
- Gulz, Agneta, et al.
(author)
-
Building a Social Conversational Pedagogical Agent - Design Challenges and Methodological Approaches
- 2010
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In: Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: Techniques and Effective Practices.
-
Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The chapter discusses some design challenges encountered when developing a conversational pedagogical agent. By tracing the historical roots of pedagogical agents in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), we discern central developments of creating an agent that is both knowledgeable and fosters a social relationship with the learner. Some main challenges when attempting to develop a pedagogical agent of this kind regard: i) learners’ expectations on the agent’s knowledge profile and social profile, ii) dealing with learners’ engagement in off-task conversation and iii) managing potential abuse of the agent. We illustrate these challenges and possible ways to address them, with reference to an ongoing R&D project, and with a focus on the design of a pedagogical agent’s visual embodiment and of its conversational capacities.
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| 12. |
- Gulz, Agneta, et al.
(author)
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Design for off-task interaction – rethinking pedagogy in technology enhanced learning
- 2010
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In: ICALT 2010 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies. - : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). - 9781424471447 - 9781424471454 - 9780769540559 - 9781424471447 ; , s. 204-206
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we argue for the design of off-task interaction in technology enchanced learning. This implies a rethinking of pedagogy which can substantially contribute to achieving specific learning goals. We describe a work-in-progress and provide concrete examples of how we deal with relevant issues raised by allowing for off-task interactions in an educational math game as an integrated learning system.
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| 13. |
- Gulz, Agneta, et al.
(author)
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Extending a Teachable Agent with a Social Conversation Module – Effects on Student Experiences and Learning
- 2011
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In: Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 2011 LNAI 6738. - Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer. ; , s. 106-114, s. 106-114
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The paper discusses the addition of off-task socially oriented conversational abilities to an existing “teachable agent” (TA) in an educational game in mathematics. The purpose of this extension is to affect constructs known to promote learning, such as self-efficacy and engagement as well as enhance students’ experiences of interacting with the game. A comparison of students that played the game with the off-task interaction to those who played without it, shows trends that indicate that students who played the game with off-task interaction had a more positive experience of the game, and that they also learnt more, as reflected in the learning outcomes of their TAs.
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| 14. |
- Haake, Magnus, et al.
(author)
-
Pedagogical agents: Pedagogical interventions via integration of task-oriented and socially oriented conversation.
- 2011
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In: [Host publication title missing].
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The paper discusses the motivation for and outcome of the addition of socially oriented so called “off-task” conversational abilities to an existing “teachable agent” (TA) in an educational mathematics game. The purpose of the extension is to affect constructs known to promote learning, such as self-efficacy and engagement, as well as enhancing students’ experiences of the game. A comparison of students that played the educational game with the off-task interaction included to those who played without it, indicate that the former had a more positive experience of the game, and that they also learnt more in the sense of teaching their TA better. The potential for pedagogical interventions in this and similar systems is discussed as well as differences found between high- and low-achievers.
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| 15. |
- Haake, Magnus, et al.
(author)
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Teaching Her, Him…or Hir? Challenges for a Cross-Cultural Study.
- 2011
-
In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science. - Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer Berlin/Heidelberg. ; , s. 447-448, s. 447-448
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper discusses some cultural considerations that we stand before in developing and exploiting an agent based educational software for use by Swedish and American students, age 11-14. The reported cultural challenges arise in software develop¬ment, study designs, and decisions on actual pedagogical use in the two cultural settings.
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| 16. |
- Jönsson, Arne, 1955-, et al.
(author)
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Experiences from combining dialogue system development with information extraction techniques
- 2004
-
In: New directions in question answering. - Boston : AAAI Press. - 0262633043 ; , s. 153-168
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Next generation question answering systems are challenged on many fronts including but not limited to massive, heterogeneous and sometimes streaming collections, diverse and challenging users, and the need to be sensitive to context, ambiguity, and even deception. This chapter describes new directions in question answering (QA) including enhanced question processing, source selection, document retrieval, answer determination, and answer presentation generation. We consider important directions such as answering questions in context (e.g., previous queries, day or time, the data, the task, location of the interactive device), scenario based QA, event and temporal QA, spatial QA, opinionoid QA, multimodal QA, multilingual QA, user centered and collaborative QA, explanation, interactive QA, QA reuse, and novel architectures for QA. The chapter concludes by outlining a roadmap of the future of question answering, articulating necessary resources for, impediments to, and planned or possible future capabilities.
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| 17. |
- Kim, Yanghee, et al.
(author)
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The effect of the visual gender of an embodied agent : A cross-cultural comparison
- 2013
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In: Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA 2013). - Washington : AERA, American Educational Research Association. ; , s. 1-9
-
Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study explored if the visual gender representations (androgynous, male, or female) of an embodied agent would influence students’ perceptions of their agent and their attitudes toward the agent as their conversational partner. The study also explored if students’ gender and cultural background would interact with the agent’s visual gender to influence their perceptions and attitudes. Participants were 208 early-teen students sampled from US and South Korea. The results revealed that student gender was a significant factor for influencing students' perceptions and attitudes and that the students showed positive attitudes toward an androgynous agent more than toward a gendered agent (either male or female).
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| 18. |
- Kim, Yanghee, et al.
(author)
-
The Effect of the Visual Gender of an Embodied Agent: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
- 2012
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study explored if the visual gender representations (androgynous, male, or female) of an embodied agent would influence students’ perceptions of their agent and their attitudes toward the agent as their conversational partner. The study also explored if students’ gender and cultural background would interact with the agent’s visual gender to influence their perceptions and attitudes. Participants were 208 early-teen students sampled from US and South Korea. The results revealed that student gender was a significant factor for influencing students' perceptions and attitudes and that the students showed positive attitudes toward an androgynous agent more than toward a gendered agent (either male or female).
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| 19. |
- Kirkegaard, Camilla, 1977-
(author)
-
Adding Challenge to a Teachable Agent in a Virtual Learning Environment
- 2016
-
Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The topic of this thesis concerns what happens when challenging behavior is added to a teachable agent in a virtual learning environment. The aim of adding challenging behavior to teachable agents is to encourage students to engage in learning behaviors, improve their motivation and engagement, which may result in a deeper level of comprehension and an improved learning experience. We conducted an explorative user study, using Guardian of History, a teachable agent learning environment in history. We analyzed data from 146 students, 11-12 years old, from a Swedish school. The students were assigned to two different agent conditions: traditional teachable agent (TA) or a challenging TA (CTA). The conditions were also balanced with respect to the students’ level of self-efficacy. The CTA exhibited the following challenging behaviors: 1) introduction of error, 2) rejection of correct facts, and 3) proposal of a higher level of difficulty. Students who used the challenging TA and also had a high level of self-efficacy performed better in the CTA condition and students with a low level of self-efficacy reached better academic achievement in the traditional TA condition. Students did not experience the learning-by-teaching effects different by the introduced challenging TA behaviors. Students within the CTA condition got better at responding to challenging TA behavior, than students in the TA condition. The CTA behavior “rejection of correct facts” was better received than the “rejection of correct”, this suggests that a challenging TA may benefit to a larger degree by questioning rather than by introducing errors.
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| 20. |
- Kirkegaard, Camilla, et al.
(author)
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Ascribed Gender and Characteristics of a Visually Androgynous Teachable Agent.
- 2014
-
In: Intelligent Virtual Agents : 14th International Conference, IVA 2014, Boston, MA, USA, August 27-29, 2014, Proceedings / Lecture Notes in Computer Science. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 0302-9743 .- 1611-3349. - 9783319097664 - 9783319097671 ; 8637, s. 232-235
-
Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The chapter explores how users ascribe gender to a visually androgynous teachable agent, and if and how the ascribed gender can influence the perceived personality characteristics of the agent. Previous studies have shown positive effects of using agents with more neutral or androgynous appearances, for instance, a more gender neutral agent evoked more positive attitudes on females than did a more stereotypical female agent [1] and androgynous agents were less abused than female agents [2]. Another study showed that even though an agent was visually androgynous, the user typically ascribed a gender to it [3].
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| 21. |
- Kirkegaard, Camilla, et al.
(author)
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Introducing a challenging teachable agent
- 2014
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In: Learning and Collaboration Technologies. Designing and Developing Novel Learning Experiences: First International Conference, LCT 2014, Held as Part of HCI International 2014, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 22-27, 2014, Proceedings, Part I ; Lecture Notes in Computer Science. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 1611-3349 .- 0302-9743. - 9783319074825 - 9783319074818 ; 8523, s. 53-62
-
Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The chapter explores the potentials of a new type of pedagogical agent – a Challenger Teachable Agent. The aim of such a pedagogical agent is to increase engagement and motivation, and challenge students into deeper learning and metacognitive reasoning. It is based on the successful implementation of the Learning by Teaching approach in Teacheable Agents, and in addition it draws on previous work that has shown the potential of resistance or challenge as means to improve learning. In this paper we discuss how these two bases can be combined and realized through new types of behaviours in a Teachable Agent.
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| 22. |
- Palmqvist, Lisa, et al.
(author)
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The Relationship Between Working Memory Capacity and Students' Behaviour in a Teachable Agent-Based Software
- 2015
-
In: Artificial Intelligence in Education. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 0302-9743 .- 1611-3349. - 9783319197739 - 9783319197722 ; 9112, s. 670-673
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The current study investigated if and how students' behaviour when using a teachable agent-based educational software were related to their working memory capacity. Thirty Swedish students aged 11-12, participated in the study. Results showed that differences in behaviour such as time spent on an off-task activity, time spent on interactive dialogues, and the number of tests that students let their TA take, were associated with differences in working memory capacity.
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| 23. |
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| 24. |
- Silvervarg, Annika, 1974-, et al.
(author)
-
AIED interactive event: ”The Brick Game” demonstration
- 2011
-
In: <em>Proceedings of The 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education</em>. AIED 2011, LNAI 6738. - : Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)
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| 25. |
- Silvervarg, Annika, et al.
(author)
-
An Educational Math Game with a Teachable Agent and a Social Chat
- 2011
-
In: Artificial Intelligence in Education. - Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer. ; , s. 626-
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present an educational math game, including a teachable agent and a social chat, that trains basic arithmetic skills with a focus on grounding base-ten concepts in spatial representations. It employs a board-game design with a variety of different sub-games, game modes and levels of difficulty. When a student has learnt to play one of the sub-games, she may teach it to her Teachable Agent (TA). In the observation mode the TA “watches” the student play and picks up on game rules and on the student’s responses to multiple-choice questions, such as “Why did you choose this card?” Proper (or improper) choices of cards and answers promote corresponding skills in the TA throughout the game. In the try-and-be-guided mode, the agent is allowed to propose cards. The student either accepts the agent’s suggestion or rejects it and exchanges the agent’s card for another one. Again the agent asks for the reasons for the student’s behaviour, using the multiple-choice format. In other words, the basic game with the TA contains a form of on-task conversation between agent and student. But the game architecture also has been extended with a chat where the student can engage in conversation with the TA, writing freely by means of the keyboard and bring up basically any topic in a chat-like manner. We refer to this as off-task conversation and distinguish within it between on-domain conversation and off-domain conversation, the former referring to chat conversation related to school, math, the math game, etc., and the latter to any other topic. One reason to include off-task conversation is to enrich the game and its motivational qualities for the age group in question (12-14 year olds). Another is to be able to explore whether such a conversational module can enable pedagogical interventions, such as supporting pupils math self efficacy and change negative attitudes toward math in general. Notably the on-task and off-task conversations have very different formats, but are still designed as two interrelated and complementary activities. A recent study [1] indicates that the added off-task conversation module can i) improve students’ game experience, ii) improve learning outcomes, and iii) engage learners in voluntary on-domain chat.
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