Prototyping user interfaces for investigating the role of virtual agents in human-machine interaction: A demonstration in the domain of cooperative games

Abstract

To investigate how different levels of embodiment or variations of a task affect the performance or perception of an interaction, researchers need tools that enable them to effortlessly modify such aspects. We demonstrate the MultiPro framework that allows for fast and easy prototyping of applications that are to be used in the context of human-machine interaction research. In conjunction with a newly developed cooperative game scenario we show how different configurations with and without an embodied agent can be configures and how the agent’s behavior can be adapted.