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Synthetic Psychology’ Approach Creating Believable, Emergent Behaviour in Virtual Agents, Using a ‘Synthetic Psychology’ Approach Micah Marlon Rosenkind A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Brighton for the degree of Master of Philosophy December 2015 The University of Brighton I declare that the research contained in this thesis, unless otherwise formally indicated within the text, is the original work of the author. The thesis has not been previously submitted to this or any other university for a degree, and does not incorporate any material already submitted for a degree. 18/12/2015 2 ABSTRACT Drawing on the fields of robotics, computer games and usability testing, this thesis contextualises the work of cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg within the current field of game AI and demonstrates how there remain aspects of his propositions that cannot yet be adequately captured theoretically, or tested empirically or conclusively, in simulations of complex biologically inspired behaviours. Justification for this stems from the view that believable, simulated characters are increasingly prevalent and exposed to mass-market scrutiny in visual entertainment media, such as visual effects in films and in particular the growing video games business, but will also have a growing, significant role in serious games and educational applications. This thesis combines analytical, synthetic and empirical methods and discusses the contributions and limitations of each to the evaluation of believability in the context of human computer interaction scenarios. It first analyses Braitenberg’s more intuitive architectures and demonstrates how these can be adapted, using a synthetic approach, to function as controllers for believable virtual agents, in a series of typical gaming scenarios. It then presents a set of empirical studies that were performed to develop a method for evaluating agents for their ability to elicit suspension of disbelief in the user. The resulting method, which is user centred and combines a qualitative content analysis approach with believability metrics for virtual agents sourced from the literature, was used to evaluate a series of increasingly complex agent models in a simple game scenario. The data was then compared to the results of the analysis of the underlying agent architecture to determine the correlation between AI design intent and the resulting user reactions and observations gathered from the empirical study. This study concludes that a theoretical and analytical approach to Braitenberg’s architectures can give us insight into the range and limits of the behaviour dynamics that are possible, but that an effective and useful evaluation and categorisation (labelling) of their impact on user perception, and their ability to elicit suspension of disbelief and trigger a desired response in the user, needs to also draw on empirical methods that record and analyse the observations and responses of human users. Further work is presented that explores how the Braitenberg architectures featured in these experiments can be utilised in a number of gaming scenarios and how they could be extended with connectionist components that add associative and predictive capabilities. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................................... 8 Table of Tables.............................................................................................................................................. 10 Table of Terminology as Used in this Thesis.................................................................................... 11 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... 13 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 14 1.1 PERSONAL MOTIVATION ............................................................................................................ 15 1.2 JUSTIFICATION FOR RESEARCH ................................................................................................. 15 1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ............................................................................................................... 20 1.4 CONTRIBUTIONS .......................................................................................................................... 21 1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................................................................... 21 1.6 RESEARCH METHOD .................................................................................................................... 21 1.7 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH .......................................................................................................... 22 1.8 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS ............................................................................................................ 22 2 Literature Review ................................................................................................................................ 24 2.1 CRITERIA FOR BELIEVABLE AGENTS........................................................................................ 24 2.1.1 The Distinction Between Believable and Lifelike ....................................................... 24 2.1.2 Believability vs Human-Like Behaviour ......................................................................... 25 2.1.3 Suspension of Disbelief ........................................................................................................... 27 2.1.4 The Fundamental Principles of Classical Animation ................................................ 28 2.1.5 Criteria for Believable Autonomous Interactive Agents ......................................... 31 2.1.6 Believable Agents and the Illusion of Life ...................................................................... 33 2.1.7 Measuring Believability ......................................................................................................... 34 2.1.8 User Experience Testing ........................................................................................................ 36 2.1.9 The Relationship Between the Artist and the Character ........................................ 40 2.1.10 Observer Psychology and Agent Behaviour Interpretation ............................. 42 2.1.11 Perceived Emergence ........................................................................................................ 43 2.1.12 The Uncanny Valley Effect ............................................................................................... 44 2.2 BELIEVABLE AGENT MODELS ................................................................................................... 45 2.2.1 From Ducks and Tortoises to Vehicles ............................................................................ 46 2.2.2 Vehicles – Valentino Braitenberg ...................................................................................... 47 2.2.3 The Rodney Brooks Subsumption Architecture .......................................................... 57 4 2.2.4 LEGO Bricks – From Braitenberg to Mindstorms ...................................................... 57 2.2.5 Extending Braitenberg Vehicles ......................................................................................... 60 2.2.6 MAVRIC Extended Braitenberg Architecture ............................................................... 62 2.2.7 BEAM Robots ............................................................................................................................... 63 2.3 BELIEVABLE AGENTS RESEARCH GROUPS .............................................................................. 64 2.3.1 MIT A.L.I.V.E Project ................................................................................................................ 64 2.3.2 Duncan Sheepdog ..................................................................................................................... 65 2.3.3 Realistic Fish ............................................................................................................................... 66 2.3.4 Oz Project...................................................................................................................................... 67 2.4 BELIEVABLE AGENTS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY ................................................ 68 2.4.1 Massive ........................................................................................................................................... 68 2.4.2 Natural Motion .......................................................................................................................... 68 2.4.3 Actor Machine ............................................................................................................................ 69 2.4.4 Creatures ....................................................................................................................................... 69 2.4.5 The Sims .......................................................................................................................................
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