Following a brief discussion on aspects of visual appearance and roles respectively, two user studies are presented and discussed. Both focus on learner experiences and explore the reciprocal relation between visual appearance of virtual agents and their pedagogical roles. The paper concludes with some preliminary guidelines for the early stages of the design process of virtual pedagogical agents.

1 Abstract—Recently, many researchers have studied on animated pedagogical agents to improve students' learning experience in educational systems. In this paper, we describe how personalized pedagogical agents can be applied into AR educational applications. We have developed the augmented gardening system which provides users with opportunity to explore physiological and environmental consider...

In discussions on naturalism vs. stylization in the design of virtual pedagogical agents (VPAs), the smooth communication argument is one of the most central in favour of visual naturalism. Yet, this argument dissolves if we separate design into the levels of: (l) linguistic performance, where the support for naturalism is strong; (2) dynamic visual appearance, in the sense of bodily behaviour,...

In order for a virtual environment to be effective as a training tool, it is not enough to concentrate on the fidelity of the renderings and the accuracy of the simulated behaviors. The environment should help trainees develop an understanding of the task being trained, and should provide guidance and assistance as needed. This paper describes a system for developing virtual environments in whi...

In this paper, we describe a method for pedagogical agents to choose when to interact with learners in interactive learning environments. This method is based on observations of human tutors coaching students in on-line learning tasks. It takes into account the focus of attention of the learner, the learner’s current task, and expected time required to perform the task. A Bayesian network model...

One of the most important developments in the software industry in recent years has been the merger of the entertainment and educational software markets. An intriguing possibility for edutainment software is the introduction of intelligent life-like characters. By coupling inferential capabilities with well-crafted animated creatures, it becomes possible to create animated pedagogical agents t...

This paper describes the design and empirical validation of three distinct pedagogical agent roles (Expert, Motivator, and Mentor) for college students within the MIMIC (Multiple Intelligent Mentors Instructing Collaboratively) agent-based research environment. The pedagogical agent roles were operationalized by image, animation, affect, voice, and dialogue and were developed in Poser 4 and imp...

This study concerns virtual environments for training in operational conditions. The principal developed idea is that these environments are heterogeneous and open multi-agent systems. The MASCARET model is proposed to organize the interactions between agents and to provide them reactive, cognitive and social abilities to simulate the physical and social environment. The physical environment re...

In a virtual environment for the learning of cooperative tasks, learners have to coordinate with one or more autonomous agents in order to perform a task. This coordination requires that the human and agent team members reason and dialogue about their resources, action plans, and shared actions. This article proposes a new agent architecture called PCBDI designed to generate reactive, proactive...

accepted for the International Conference: ICT, Media & Learning Moving Technology, Changing Society (IML'05) Copenhagen, Denmark, November 24-25, 2005. Virtual pedagogical agents, i.e. computer generated characters with pedagogical roles – instructors, coaches, learning companions, etc. – are entering the digital society [1]. Extensive research has been undertaken regarding movements, gesturin...