Proceedings of the Conference on Mathematical Foundations of Informatics MFOI’2018, July 2-6, 2018, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova

An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software

Olesea Caftanatov

Abstract This paper presents the currently most used types and styles of avatars, reviews the attention effect of the anthropomorphic avatars on users and, finally we purpose an anthropomorphic avatar-based design for our GeoMe’s virtual tutor.

Keywords: avatar, virtual tutor, visual identification, anthropomorphic avatar.

1. Introduction In an increasingly digital world, where the popularity of web-based social networking is permanently growing, people communicate through technical devices, practically, same often as without using them. In order to visually represent themselves when communicating with each other online, the users often exploit a software component called “avatar”. Generally, an avatar is an embodiment of a person or an idea. The term “avatar” originates in Hinduism, from the Sanskrit noun “avatāra”, the meaning of which is “down coming”. It refers to a “descent” of the divine into realm of material existence, usually for the purpose of protecting or restoring dharma (cosmic order, righteousness) [1]. Avatar literally means “descent, alight, to make one’s appearance” [2] and refers to the embodiment of the essence of a superhuman being or a deity in another form. This word also implies “to overcome, to remove, to bring down, and to cross something” [3]. In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user’s alter ego or a character [4]. Avatar’s form can vary from 2D model to 3D model or even to 4D model. In general, two-dimensional avatar represents a static or animated user picture used in communication © 2018 by Olesea Caftanatov Olesea Caftanatov between people, like in socialized web sites, blogs, forums or even live chats. Moreover 3D avatar model is used for computer games, since 1979. The early use was in role-playing computer game “Avatar” created in the University of Illinois Control Data Corporation PLATO System [5], which was influenced by many other games, but especially by dnd (A.k.a “The Game of Dungeons”) [6]. The first time this word was used as a term for the user’s identity on screen in “Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar” of 1985 [7]. Recently, the greater challenge became the creation of the 4D avatars (like hologram avatar). An example of this can be found in [8] – this is a footage from an exhibition game match in “Yu-Gi-Oh!” from World Championship 2017. Nowadays, in addition to games, the use of avatars influences all fields of our life including business, marketing, science, healthcare, digital art, telecommunication and educational systems. In this work, we will focus our attention on the design of an avatar for educational software GeoMe. In our case, the avatar is the tutor’s embodiment, which helps the users to learn geometry courses.

2. Types of Avatar Design According to [9-12] reviews various types of avatar are used, and based on one of which experts can detect and make the psychological portrait of user. Avatars offer a broad range of behavioral and emotional expressions. Below there are described only five types of avatar design. Anonymous avatar – basically, this type of avatar is used by new users (beginners) or by the category of people, who visit some web sites for the first and last time, or by people that do not care how their avatar looks like. In early days, different applications used a grey picture of a man or a woman to represent an anonymous avatar. While in present, exist various ways to make more creative anonymous avatar. For instance, GitHub generates identicons for anyone without avatar on their platform [13]. Their identicons are unique geometric 5x5 pixel patterns generated based on a hash of a user’s IP address (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Identicons generated by GitHub

Another creative style of anonymous avatar is initials with a unique background color. Depending on what kind of information is available from the user profile, system will display the first or last initial, like Google does (see Figure 2), or combination of initials as Dropbox does.

Figure 2. Initials generated by Google

Additionally, Google found a funny way to represent the anonymous users who visualize the shared document. Instead of only using initials icon with different background colors for each person, they associate each person with an animal [14] (see Figure 3). In addition, to some expected animals like dog, kitty or bear, they also display extinct or mythical animals [15], such as auroch, chupacabra, ifrit etc.

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Figure 3. Anonymous animal type avatar generated by Google Drive

Animal avatar – regarding this type of avatar, people themselves use it as much as various systems that generate anonymous icons. According to [16] people like to use animal avatars because it somehow relates to their pets or because animals symbolize certain traits or attributes (e.g. strength, loyalty, grace, independence, cunning, etc.) or characteristics admired by the person. Also, in some case the chosen animal probably bears some psychological significance to a person, perhaps it represents some aspect of his identity. For example: a cat means weasel, domesticity, independence; a dog – loyalty, honesty; a snake – wisdom; a fox – cunningness; a bull – strength, perseverance [17].

Figure 4. Animal avatars 6 An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software

The opposed type of avatar to anonymous one is real face avatar. Some users prefer to use real face avatar, it can be their self-photo or their loved one. Usually, when a user presents a photo with them, it may be a gesture of honesty, romance or a sign of friendship. The peculiarities of people with this type of avatar are their complete confidence in their rightness of their way of life and thoughts (Figure 5). Meanwhile, real face avatar has its patterns too, for instance: if the presented image displays a couple – it means demonstration of their own relations, their own usefulness; a photo from childhood – means melancholy, users miss the time from past; a selfie – usually, behind of a self-avatar can hide a real narcissus. Owners of self-avatars often change profile image, it is a way to demonstrate what they like, what they can be in various angles in different situations with a large range of emotions that they express.

Figure 5. Real face avatars

Nature avatar – it can be natural landscapes (e.g. mountains, sea, waterfall, space, etc.), natural phenomena (e.g. lightning, explosion, fire, snowing, sandstorm, rain, etc.), floral, etc. Architectural design considers belonging to the same type of avatar (see Figure 6). For this type, the background is more important than the details. People that hide beside such avatar are inclined to non-standard thinking. Usually, they do not like to talk about themselves, but they are always ready to speculate about the world order (e.g. philosophy, politics, science, economics and other favorite topics).

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Figure 6. Nature avatars

Character avatar – this type includes a wide range of fantasy styles, it can be an idol from movie that they greatly admire and love. Many users have desires (conscious or unconscious) to have superpowers like movie heroes (Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Flash, Cat-Woman, etc.). Often behind such avatar a teenager hides. Anyway, who does not want to be strong and invulnerable? This type of idolization does not limit only to movies, but to cartoons, books, comics, games, manga, anime too (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. Character avatars

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3. Avatar vs Gravatar As we know, an avatar is an image that represents us online - a little icon that usually displays next to our nickname. It can be static image (.jpeg, .bmp, .png, etc.) or animated (.gif). The acronym “GIF” stands for the Graphics Interchange Format and is one of the most common avatar formats on World Wide Web. In order to not overuse the memory capacity of application, all systems have a size file limitation indifferent of what avatar format we use. Therefore, depending of websites or other application we need to resize our images according to avatars size limitation. It can be 24 x24 pixels or even 200x200 pixels. Sometimes when we resize our favorite image to the needed requirements, our image deforms and this can really frustrate. We are compelled to go through this process many times, because we daily use not only one website or live chat. For those users who like to change their avatar very often, obvious it costs time, so one solution can be using Gravatar. A Gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar [18]. Gravatar is a service for providing globally – unique avatars and was created by Tom Preston – Werner [19]. The main point is that user needs to create and upload profile just once, after that wherever he (she) participates in any Gravatar-enable sites, their gravatar image will follow them automatically. Therefore, this allows each commenter to have their identity throughout the World Wide Web. Those users who want to keep their profile low should use avatar, but people who have their own business, developers, bloggers or anyone who wants to build a brand should start using a gravatar [20], because the gravatars help them to be recognized on large scale.

4. Avatar Design Principles According to [21] Park Ji Yong and Nam Yong Hyun review, various types, style of avatar build up a well-articulated set of design principles for effective avatar design. Based on avatar design consideration (mediator, personality, customization and interactivity) the foundations for five avatar design principles were set.

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The first principle is about the possibility to be identifiable. All avatars should be identifiable like brand mark for companies, in such way it would be recognized as “online identifier” for natural person. Another principle is about esthetical aspect of avatars, because their main purpose is to attract other users’ attention and by communicating with each other to create a friendship bond, or romantic bond, or even a collaboration bond. Additionally, avatars should be creative and unique because all people intend to be unique. There are not identical people in real world, even if there are twins that look the same, their personality for sure is different. That is why this is another design principle that we should consider. In addition, one of the important parts of avatars is their possibility to be manipulable. In terms of customization, avatar should be able to be applied with other objects and be combined with other elements such as background, text, stickers, animation, etc. The last but not the least is the property to be expendable because as user grows up and changes, or as his mood changes, the avatar should be able to change too, in order to fit people’s trends.

5. Virtual Tutor’s Avatar Design According to [22], personifying the virtual tutor has a positive impact on learners, especially if the virtual tutor’s embodiment includes emotional aspects, because it catches and focuses student’s attention. Therefore, we intend to develop virtual tutor for our educational application GeoMe. In addition, C. Okonkwo considers that there are some gender-based and individual differences in the user perception of an emotional agent, which need to be taken into account when designing a virtual tutor. In our project we choose a parrot species to be an embodiment of our virtual tutor, (see Figure 8). The main argument is that parrots try to repeat the interesting sounds from their environment as students try to repeat assimilated knowledge after their teachers. In general, humanity may repeat almost everything what they see or learn from others. Similarly, parrots are like small children who are very curious to learn as many interesting things as

10 An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software possible from the environment in which they live. Also, parrots observe and then try to mimic what they hear, often the short sounds. Moreover, it is a perfect solution for our mobile application, because in general we intend to create short messages almost for everything, being it an encouraging message or a definition of a geometrical shape. All ideas for avatar’s design belong to me, but all arts are drawn by my friend Victoria Țvetkova.

Figure 8. Our virtual tutor’s avatar In our project we intend to design 4 levels (0, 1, 2, 3) of avatar for each level difficulty. 0 level is designed for all new users, because virtual teacher does not have enough information about their skills and their knowledge level. For this level, we purpose an interesting egg design appearance. In order to pop up a parrot from egg, the users need only to read the basic theory level recommended by eggy tutor. In Figure 9 there are presented two avatar’s 2D images, one before basic theory activity and the second image is after this activity was taken. It means that virtual teacher has some information about their students, thus it means that the tutor now may purpose some assessment activity.

Figure 9. 2D image of virtual tutor with level 0 Regarding level 1-3 it stands for three categories of difficulty: easy, moderate and challenging. In all easy activities our avatar design will have a chibi appearance, as in figure 10 A. For level 2 (moderate) our virtual tutor’s appearance evolve to a teenager appearance (see Figure 10

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B), and for the challenging level our avatar’s design looks like an grown up parrot (see Figure 10 C).

Figure 10. The evolution of our virtual tutor The main point is that users are motivated to help their virtual teacher to access the greater level of knowledge, subsequently they learn according to that level. In other words, it can be described as being a:”knowledge challenger”. 6. Attentional effect of anthropomorphic avatar Anthropomorphism is the idea that an animal or an object has feelings, characteristics or behaviors like those of a human being. Exists some debate about the influence of anthropomorphic avatars, in some research like in [24], people reported the less anthropomorphic image to be more credible and likeable than the more anthropomorphic image. Alternatively, like in [25] study, participants reported feeling that they were more engaged in their communication when they did not use any anthropomorphic images representing their partners on the small screen of a cell phone. On the other hand, in some studies [26-29] people believe that avatars that are more anthropomorphic are more credible, engaging and likeable than less anthropomorphic images. Additionally, there was a concern that the animated character might prove to be a distraction for the participants. In [23, 30, 31] studies found that the anthropomorphic animated character was marginally less distracting than the simple animated character. Despite of all discusses, we intend to design an anthropomorphic avatar because it:  motivates user on a long interaction with application; 12 An Anthropomorphic Avatar-based Approach for Virtual Tutoring Software

 attract the user’s focus of attention;  conveys emotional signal;  guides the user through application. 7. Designing Avatar’s Emotions Regarding emotions, we intend to design them to be more like human feelings (see Figure 11). In order to focus the user’s attention we intend to add voice message to those avatars. Some of the voice messages will be to encourage users when they answer correctly /incorrectly to their assessment’s activity something like “Good job!” for positive answers, and “Aww, Try again!” for negative answers. Considering that the target users are the students from elementary school, thus we all know that they do not really like to read, so we will add voice sounds to the theoretical part too. For example, in [32] you can hear the angle definition in Romanian version. Initially, we wanted to add voice message that mimic parrot’s speech but it is hard to understand. Hence, in order to maintain the easy comprehension we mimic child’s voice. It also will catch the user’s attention.

Figure 11. Some example of avatar’s emotion 8. Final thoughts Our main project goal consists in developing an education application with a personalized content and design. In order to obtain the personalization we want to add anthropomorphic avatar-based approach for our virtual tutor. Well, just deciding on an avatar style takes

13 Olesea Caftanatov thoughtfulness, designing, research, analyzing, etc. and it is only a small step towards our largest goal of personalization. Nevertheless, even these small changes in avatar’s appearance according to user’s behavior make the work meaningful, funny and creative. It has the potential to attract and keep user’s attention by creating delightful experience that affects users in the virtual and real world. References [1] Avatar. New World Encyclopedia. http://www.newworldencyclopedia .org/entry/Avatar [2] S. Noel. "Hindu Avatāra and Christian Incarnation: A Comparison". Philosophy East and West. Volume 52, January 1, 2002. p.98- 125. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/26576/pdf [3] W. Monier. Avatāra A Sanskrit English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. P.90. https://books.google.bg/books?id=_3NWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA90&red ir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false [4] Avatar (computing). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(com puting)#Origins [5] Video Games A.k.a. Avatar. University of Illinois. 1979. link: https://www.uvlist.net/game-174616-avatar [6] Video Game Dnd A.k.a. The Game of Dungeons. Southern Illinois University. 1974 link:. https://www.uvlist.net/game-160118-dnd [7] J. Mahner. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. 1985. The digital antiquarian website link: https://www.filfre.net/2014/07/ultima-iv/ [8] Aditya. Augmented Reality Duel - Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2017. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgs6fgqYquw [9] E. Koba. Top -15 primetov: O ciom psihologam raskajet vash avatar. June 8. 2015. Website link: https://hornews.com/top/top-15_primerov_o_chem _psihologam_rasskajet_vash_avatar/ [10] Kak po avatarke sostaviti psihologiceskii portret celoveka. Part 2. Nov. 16, 2011. Blog post link: https://www.baby.ru/blogs/post/42647419-7091480/ [11] Psihologia vibora avatara. Test “O ciom raskajet ava – uznai o celoveke po avatare”. Website link: https://psycabi.net/testy/520-psikhologiya-vybora- avatara-test-o-chem-rasskazhet-ava-uznaj-cheloveka-po-avataru [12] Avatari i harakter. Kak po avatare uznati haracter celoveka?.Website link: http://www.otvet.quarkon.ru/avatar.php

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[13] J. Long. Identicons. August 14, 2013. The GitHub Blog post link: https://blog.github.com/2013-08-14-identicons/ [14] A. Chitu. Anonymous Animals in Google Drive. April 19, 2013. Google System Blog post link: https://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2013/04/ anonymous-animals-in-google-drive.html [15] A. Robbins. Anonymous Animals Icons in Google Drive. February 2, 2016. Blog post link: http://www.hercampus.com/school/ucd/weirdest-google-doc- anonymous-animals-explained [16] J. Suler. The Psychology of Avatars and Graphical Space in Multimedia Chat Communities. A Study of the Palace. Chat Communication, Michael Beiswenger, pp. 305-344. Ibidem. Stuttgart, Germany link: http://www- usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psyav.html [17] GeorgiNNa. Avatarki i ih hozeaeva. Softmixer. Online Journal. Post link: http://www.softmixer.com/2011/06/blog-post_6076.html [18] What is Gravatar? Gravatar website documentation link: http://en.gra vatar.com/support/what-is-gravatar/ [19] Gravatar, Wikipedia website link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravatar [20] Editoral Staff. What is Gravatar and Why you should start using it right away. Beginner’s guide for WordPress. March 12, 2013. Website link: http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-is-gravatar-and-why-you- should-start-using-it-right-away/ [21] P.J. Yong, N.Y. Hyun. The understanding of avatar design: various types and styles of avatars and the design considerations. The Korea Society of Illustration Research Vol.18. 2009. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/ 29594/1/29594_-_The_Understanding_of_Avatar _Design.pdf [22] C. Okonkwo. Affective Pedagogical Agents and User Persuasion. University of Saskatchewan. Canada. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ 0e2d/db1b6362 f83b7a6a53b6bb34143f1353d0a3.pdf [23] E. Andre, T. Rist, J. Müller. WebPersona: A life-like presentation agent for the World-Wide Web. German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=E4F6E9B88AE37F D069A3828F7180A817?doi=10.1.1.124.1449&rep=rep1&type=pdf [24] K.L. Nowak, F. Biocca. The effect of the agency and anthropomorphism on users’ sense of telepresence, compresence, and social presence in virtual environments. MIT Press. Teleoperators and virtual environments. Project documentation link: http://mindlab.org/images/d/DOC836.pdf

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[25] S.H. Kang, J.H. Watt, K. Isbister. The effect of static anthropomorphic images on emotion perceptions in mobile phone communication. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Presence 2006. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/ download?doi=10.1.1.555.8491&rep=rep1&type=pdf [26] K.L. Nowak, G. Zoric, N.Sträfling, N. Krämer. The Psychology of Avatars: Real life effects of virtual communication. Proceedings of the 11th Annual International Workshop on Presence Padova, 16-18 Octomber 2008. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sabine_Trepte/publication/228831565_ The_Psychology_of_Avatars_Real_Life_Effects_of_Virtual_Communicatio n/links/54ae982b0cf2b48e8ed44fa7/The-Psychology-of-Avatars-Real-Life- Effects-of-Virtual-Communication.pdf [27] K.L.Nowak,C. Rauh. The influence of the avatar on online perceptions of anthropomorphism, androgyny, credibility, homophily and attraction. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Vol 11, Issue 1, November 1, 2005. Pp.153-178. https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/11/1/153/ 4616661 [28] A. Wexelblat. Don’t make that face: a report on anthropomorphizing an interface. AAAI Technical Report SS-98-02. 1998. https://pdfs.semanti cscholar.org/5014/5ab20d2c274def86eb60b43ed87c68657788.pdf [29] T. Koda. User Reactions to anthropomorphized interfaces. JST CREST Digital City Project. Kyoto University, Japan. http://citeseerx.ist.psu. edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.81.5606&rep=rep1&type=pdf [30] C. Hongpaisanwiwat, M. Lewis. Attentional effect of animated character. IOS Press, IFIP, 2003, pp. 423-430. http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/ g.w.m.rauterberg/conferences/interact2003/INTERACT2003-p423.pdf [31] J.H. Walker, L. Sproull, R. Subramani. Using a human face in an interface. Human Factors in Computing Systems, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. April 24-28, 1994. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.91. 8319&rep=rep1&type=pdf [32] O. Caftanatov. Angle definition in Romanian version. GeoMe Application. May 25, 2018. Voice Sound link: https://files.fm/f/9sk2pg5u

Olesea Caftanatov1 1 Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, Chisinau, Moldova E-mail: [email protected]

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