Social-psychological model for synthetic actors

Abstract

We provide synthetic actors that portray fictive characters by improvising their behavior in a multimedia environment. Actors are either autonomous or avatars directed by users. Their improvisation is based on the directions they receive and the context. Directions can take different forms: high-level scenarios, user commands, and personality changes in the character portrayed. In this paper, we look at this last form of direction. We propose a social-psychological model, in which we can define personality traits that depend on the values of moods and attitudes. We show how synthetic actors can exploit such a model to produce performances theatrically interesting, believable, and diverse. The Cybercafe is used to test those features.