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Embodied Pedagogical Agents from Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications

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Embodied Pedagogical Agents from Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Embodied Pedagogical Agents From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Magnus Haake Doctoral Thesis Dept. of Design Sciences Lund University Sweden To Agneta – my everything … … and to Sebastian and Igis – who, with their childish egoism, never have given me a real chance to confuse the reality of life with the virtuality of academia. Embodied Pedagogical Agents From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Magnus Haake DOCTORAL THESIS Department of Design Sciences Faculty of Engineering Lund University Sweden Magnus Haake: Embodied Pedagogical Agents From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications © Magnus Haake 2009 Div. of Ergonomics Dept. of Design Sciences Faculty of Engineering Lund University Sweden http://www.design.lth.se/ ISSN 1650-9773 Publication 32 ISRN LUTMDN/TMAT --1032--SE EAT 2009 ISBN 978-91-628-7804-7 Format: 154 x 233 mm Typefaces: Adobe Garamond Print: E-husets tryckeri, Lund, Sweden Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Acknowledgements I have had a poston that s becomng rare n Sweden. As a faculty employed doctoral student wth no specfic project fundng, I have found myself wth a marvellous opportunty to pursue research out of pure curosty. For ths I am very much oblged to my supervsor Gerd Johansson that once offered me ths poston. Regardng the otherwse most pecular Swedsh academc system, t seems to me that most people carry out ther research not thanks to, but rather n spte of, the system. Of course I also want to gve my regards to the people around me at the depart- ment of Desgn Scences n Lund, as well as to the people at LUCS (Cogntve Scence Lund Unversty). In partcular I want to thank our marvellous secretary Karn Öhrvk for helpng us all wth all our bzarre problems, and Mattas Wal- lergård for hs nterest n my vrtual creatures, hs tps concernng film and com- puter games, and hs patence when I complan over all sorts of thngs. I also want to thank Henrk Enqust for beng even more of a sceptc than myself. As to ths very thess, I owe a lot to my wfe Agneta who has been my research colleague for many years. Snce long now, our academc engagements are totally ntermxed – and n some sense we could be regarded as a strange symbotc academc specmen. I must not forget my chldren, Sebastan and Igs, who have had ther share of strange conversatons around the dnner table. Especally, I remember Sebastan once askng: ‘Why has everythng somethng wth desgn n t?’ Magnus Haake Lund, 19/4 2009 Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Abstract Embodied pedagogical agents – vsually represented, computer generated charac- ters n pedagogcal roles, such as vrtual nstructors, mentors and learnng com- panons – populate the dgtal socety n ncreasng numbers. They are found n educatonal programmes from preschool to unversty, as well as n broader educatonal contexts n the form of medcal counsellors, vrtual health coaches, nformaton gudes, etc. Snce long, they also appear n edutanment and nfo- tanment settngs. The thess addresses psychologcal, cogntve and socal aspects of emboded vrtual characters n pedagogcal contexts wth respect to ‘statc vsual charac- terstcs’, .e. underlyng vsual characterstcs. On the bass of theoretcal con- sderatons as well as several emprcal studes, t s argued that users’ vsual and aesthetc experence of emboded pedagogcal characters (EPCs) s too mportant to be treated as a secondary ssue – not the least wth respect to central pedagog- cal goals to motvate and engage. The man conclusons of the thess are: () that vsual aspects n EPCs can be related to pedagogcal outcomes, () that there may be sgnficant relatons between vsual and socal characterstcs of EPCs and learner characterstcs, and () that EPCs may reproduce stereotypes from everyday real lfe human-human nteracton, as well as from tradtonal vsual meda – but that they smultane- ously harbour a consderable potental to challenge stereotypes. As a tool for the research communty, a framework of a vsual graphcal desgn space s proposed. The framework may scaffold the desgn of user evaluatons, whch often are blurred by uncontrolled vsually related varables. Wth regard to weak user evaluatons, the thess furthermore argues that there s a problem wth user evaluatons based upon the concept of ‘the User’, .e. an averaged standard- zed user. In order to reveal mportant correlatons between agent characterstcs and user characterstcs, t s often necessary to dentfy relevant subgroups of users rather than to treat the whole user group as an ‘averaged user’. And finally – vrtual agents may have a not yet thought of potental as research tools … Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications v Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Sammanfattning Vrtuella pedagogska karaktärer (embodied pedagogical agents) – vsuellt repre- senterade, datorgenererade karaktärer pedagogska roller, såsom vrtuella n- struktörer, handledare och lärkompanjoner – blr allt vanlgare det dgtala samhället. De finns nu lärprogram från förskola tll unverstet, lksom bredare utbldnngssammanhang form av medcnska rådgvare, personlga tränare, n- formatörer, etc. De har också sedan länge förekommt nom edutainment och infotainment. Avhandlngen dskuterar psykologska, kogntva och socala aspekter hos vr- tuella karaktärer pedagogska sammanhang med avseende på så kallade ”statska vsuella egenskaper”, dvs. underlggande vsuella egenskaper. Utfrån teoretska överväganden samt emprska studer hävdas att användares vsuella och estetska upplevelse av vrtuella pedagogska karaktärer (EPCs) är alltför vktg för att be- handlas som en sekundär frågeställnng – nte mnst med hänsyn tll vktga pedagogska egenskaper som motvaton och engagemang. De vktgaste slutsatserna avhandlngen är: () att vsuella aspekter EPCs kan relateras tll pedagogska resultat, () att det kan finnas vktga samband mellan vsuella och socala egenskaper hos EPCs och egenskaper hos användare, och () att EPCs reproducerar stereotypa föreställnngar från det vardaglga samspelet mellan männskor, lkväl som stereotypa föreställnngar från tradtonell meda – samtdgt som de bestter en förmåga att utmana stereotyper. Som ett verktyg för forskare presenteras också ett ramverk för en vsuell (grafisk) desgnrymd. Detta ramverk kan stödja utformnng av användarutvärderngar som ofta blr osäkra på grund av att man nte kontrollerar olka vsuella varabler. I samband med användarutvärderngar lyfter avhandlngen också fram prob- lemet med föreställnngen om the User, dvs. en genomsnttlg, standardserad användare. För att upptäcka vktga samband mellan egenskaper hos agenten och egenskaper hos användaren, är det ofta vktgt att dentfiera relevanta un- dergrupper av användare stället för att betrakta hela användargruppen som en medelvärdesbldad användare. Tll sst – vsuella vrtuella agenter kan även komma att få en vktg roll som forsknngsverktyg … . v Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications v Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications Table of Contents LIST OF INCLUDED PAPERS.................................................................... XI OTHER WORK BY THE RESPONDENT.................................................... XIII INTRODUCTION:A NEW SOCIAL ACTOR ..................................................3 The Emboded Vrtual Character – a New Socal Actor 3 CHAPTER 1:THE COMPUTATIONAL HERITAGE ..........................................5 Artfical Intellgence – the Root of t All 5 A short pre-history of artificial intelligence 5 Artificial intelligence from 1956 to the present 6 CHAPTER 2:FROM INTEllIGENT AGENTS TO EMBODIED PEDAGOGICAL CHARACTERS ...................................................................9 The ‘Intellgent Agent’ 9 Agents 9 Intelligent agents 10 Embodiment 11 Emboded Vrtual Characters and Conceptual Confuson 12 Avatars, agents, bots (and mannequins) 12 Conversational agents 12 Affective & relational agents 13 Pedagogical agents 13 Embodied virtual characters in general 14 Intellgent Agents vs. Emboded Pedagogcal Characters 15 A Fnal Remnder ... 16 ... or Two? 16 CHAPTER 3:ARTIFICIAL INTEllIGENCE AND LEARNING ............................17 Artfical Intellgence and Learnng – an Hstorcal Résumé 17 Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) 17 Present-day Artfical Intellgence n Learnng 18 A cognitive approach to artificial intelligence and education 18 Artificial intelligence in education 19 v Embodied Pedagogical Agents: From Visual Impact to Pedagogical Implications CHAPTER 4:TECHNOLOGY SUppORTED SOCIAL LEARNING .......................21 Socal Learnng 21 Lessons from Dstance Learnng 21 Educatonal Technology and Socal Learnng 22 The potental of Intrnscally Socal Learnng Systems 23 Character enhanced intrinsically social learning systems 23 Summary: Technology Supported Socal Learnng 25 CHAPTER 5:THE TROUBLESOME CONCEPT OF RATIONALITY....................27 About Ratonalty 27 A short history of rationalism 28 The non-rational, rationalizing human 28 Rationalism and artificial intelligence 29 The Ratonalstc Approach and Its Consequences 29 The computational trap ... 31 ... and cultural aspects 31 Ratonalty and Emboded Pedagogcal Agents 32 CHAPTER 6:A GRAPHICAL DESIGN SPACE OF EMBODIED PEDAGOGICAL AGENTS ........................................................................35 Vsual Aspects of Emboded Pedagogcal Agents 35 Dynamic and static visual characteristics 35 The problematic static visual
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