A Prototype of a Chat System Using Message Driven and Interactive Actions Character

摘要

In this article, we present a chat system in which embodied characters behave as agents of users and automatically act on messages of the users and the other character's action. We display and exchange nonverbal expressions including gestures, eye-gazes, noddings, and facial expressions in daily conversation. Nonverbal expressions convey various kinds of information that is essential to make our face-to-face communication successful. In the previous work on social psychology, it is known that there are interdependences among nonverbal expressions between those from different persons in conversation with each other. We apply this knowledge to the chat between embodied characters, so that 3D characters interactively act by user's messages. The system evaluation results demonstrated higher validity than the system that the user explicitly indicates the character's actions.