this paper, we report an empirical study of the model outlined above in the context of a classic master-servant scenario. We have been strongly influenced in our choice and treatment of this material by the work of Keith Johnstone, especially his book, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre [18]. As Johnstone observes: One status relationship that gives immense pleasure to audiences is the masterservant scene. A dramatist who adapts a story for the stage will often add a 3

Fantasy play and storytelling serve an important role in young children's development. While computers are increasingly present in the world of young children, there is a lack of computational systems that support children's voice in everyday storytelling, particularly in the context of fantasy play. This paper introduces StoryMat, a system that supports children's own voice in their own storytelling play. StoryMat offers a child-driven play space by recording and recalling children's narrating voices, and the movements they make with their toys on the mat. Empirical research with children showed that StoryMat fostered developmentally advanced forms of storytelling and provided a space where children engaged in fantasy storytelling collaboratively with or without a playmate. The paper addresses the importance of supporting children's fantasy play and suggests a new way for technology to play an integral part in that activity. Keywords: Storytelling, young children, interactive narrati...

We provide synthetic agents as intelligent actors that can improvise their behaviors in interactive environments without detailed planning, just as human improvisers do. Their behavior is based on the directions they receive: high-level scenarios, user commands, and personalities of the characters portrayed. We propose a social-psychological model that enables an author to define a character's personality influenced by moods and interpersonal relationships. Using examples of characters and experiments with users, we show how such a model can be exploited by synthetic actors to produce performances that are theatrically interesting, believable, and diverse. Keywords: synthetic actors, personality, improvisation, believability, entertainment. 1. Introduction Personality is the set of psychological traits that distinguish an individual from all others and characterize his or her behavior (Hayes-Roth et al. 1996). Such traits can easily be recognized by others, and people are commonly ...

Whether reading a novel, watching TV, or enjoying a film, people are captivated by personality-rich interactive characters. They willingly suspend disbelief in order to immerse themselves in vicarious experiences with these characters. More recently, efforts have begun to create interactive characters in computer media. Several interesting questions arise. How can we create personality-rich characters in these new media? Will we be able to create characters that have distinct and recognizable personality types? What sorts of dramatic forms will support person-character interaction? Will people willingly suspend disbelief in order to immerse themselves in interactive experiences with these characters? How will people respond to dramatic interactions with characters? Will they like or dislike particular characters? Will they enjoy the interactive experience? In this paper, we report an initial exploratory study of these issues. Keywords Synthetic actors, personality, user experiments, ...

ID: A043 Personality in Synthetic Agents Rousseau, Daniel KSL, Stanford University Hayes-Roth, Barbara KSL, Stanford University Abstract Personality characterizes an individual through a set of psychological traits that influence his or her behavior. Combining visions from psychology, artificial intelligence and theater, we are studying the use of personality by intelligent, automated actors able to improvise their behavior in order to portray characters, and to interact with users in a multimedia environment We show how psychological personality traits can be exploited to produce a performance that is theatrically interesting and believable without being completely predictable. We explain how personality can influence moods and interpersonal relationships. We describe the model of a synthetic actor that takes into account those concepts to choose its behavior in a given context. In order to test our approach, we observe the performance of autonomous actors portraying waiters with di...

The importance of play in young children’s lives cannot be minimized. From teddy bears to blocks, children’s experiences with the tools of play can impact their social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Today, the tools of play include desktop computers and computerenhanced physical environments. In this paper, we consider the merits of desktop and physical environments for young children (4-6 years old), by comparing the same contentinfused game in both contexts. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used for data collection and analysis.

One difficulty in creating synthetic characters for interactive stories is that these characters must convey their role in the story in a believable way. However, the relation between believability, on one side, and the role a character plays in a drama, on the other, has not yet been fully addressed. In this paper we will present a view on how to develop believable synthetic characters whose behaviour is based on a set of predefined functions (Propp’s functions) associated with the role they play in the story. To illustrate the approach, we will present a collaborative virtual environment, Teatrix, designed for children to build their own stories-fairy tales. In Teatrix, virtual actors play roles (such as villain, hero, magician, etc), which are functional for the development of the story. Such roles have pre-defined goals and plans, allowing the story to flow and climax situations to arise. Teatrix is already in use by children ages between 7 and 9, in the context of a Computer-Integrated Classroom scenario.

this paper, we illustrate this potential with three prototypes. Improv Puppets improvise interactions with one another based on real-time directions from players. Improv Actors improvise different interpretations of scenarios designed and provided in advance by game designers or players. Improv Avatars represent players in on-line virtual worlds, combining player-directed improvisations with player-controlled dialogue. Characters in all three prototypes are designed to run in a common software architecture [5, 7, 10]. The architecture provides an organizational structure for implementing characters' "minds" as computer programs that: (a) control the behavior of their animated "bodies" in virtual worlds; and (b) communicate with game designers and players via appropriate user interfaces. It provides data structures and algorithms to support development of game characters that exhibit life-like qualities, follow directions, and im

Personality characterizes an individual through a set of traits that influence his or her behavior. We propose a model of personality that can be used by intelligent, automated actors able to improvise their behavior and to interact with users in a multimedia environment. Users themselves become actors by exercising high-level control over their own intelligent agents. We propose different dimensions of personality that are based on the processes that intelligent agents usually perform. These dimensions are rich enough to allow the specification of an interesting number of characters able to improvise and react differently although they are put in the same context. We show the influence that the personality traits have on an actor's behavior, moods and relationships. An application of the Computer Virtual Theater, the Cybercafé, is used to test our model. 1. Introduction Personality is an important domain of research in psychology. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the definitio...

We examined the nature of children's interactions when they worked with peers (same-age and cross-age) and with an adult (mothers) on a computerized playcrafting activity called Improvisational Puppets. Our findings show that mother's used a "guidance" approach -- demonstrations, suggestions, and guided-questioning -- as a way of involving their preschool child in the playcrafting activity. Mothers were sensitive to the preschool child's needs and skills -- for example, they responded to all of their child's questions and requests for help, and relinquished control to the child when the child became more competent in the activity. In contrast, older siblings were more likely to dominate the playcrafting, using physical intervention and directives. When age-mates collaborated, the interactions were more equal. No one partner dominated the talk related to the task nor controlled the storyline. We also examined whether the Improv puppets program, which has collaboration features "built-in...