Projet de recherche doctoral numero :4648

Description

Date depot: 1 janvier 1900
Titre: Les premières secondes comptent : gérer les premières impressions pour un agent virtuel plus engageant
Directrice de thèse: Catherine PELACHAUD (ISIR (EDITE))
Domaine scientifique: Sciences et technologies de l'information et de la communication
Thématique CNRS : Non defini

Resumé: This thesis is part of an ANR French-Switzerland project IMPRESSIONS that involves a French partner, CNRI-LTCI Telecom-ParisTech and a Swiss partner, Université de Genève. In any encounter the first moments are critical and the impressions that we form of others matter. These impressions tend to last and affect the interaction experience. In human-human interaction first impressions can be formed by observing individual characteristics (or stereotypical traits), such as height, clothing and, more generally, visual appearance [Naumann et al. 2009; Argyle 1988; Miller et al. 2007]. However, first impressions can be formed also by observing someone behavior, such as facial expressions and body language (i.e. nonverbal behavior) [Riggio and Friedman 1986; Argyle 1988; Burgoon et al. 1984]. In the context of first encounters, individuals can carefully plan how to present themselves visually, but it may be difficult to have full control over all nonverbal cues during the interaction [DePaulo 1992]. Many researchers [Kervyn et al. 2013; Fiske et al., 2007] attempted to find which elements influence social perception, or in other words 'the impression we form of others'. Two variables or dimensions are most often proposed to describe this concept: warmth and competence [Fiske et al. 2007]. The goal of the project IMPRESSION is to build an anthropomorphic virtual character (ECA -Embodied Conversational Agent) able to make the best possible first impression on a user, thus effectively engaging him or her in an interaction. This goal will be realized by building an affective loop which ties the behavior of the ECA to the actual emotional reactions of the user facing it in real-time. This will give rise to an ECA capable of managing their first impressions on users. We focus on the identification and modeling of the nonverbal behavior, towards exhibiting, managing and maintaining impressions of two important socio¬cognitive dimensions in the first minutes of interaction with a user. These dimensions are warmth (i.e. being friendly, agreeable, engaging and approachable) and competence (i.e. appear skilled, knowledgeable on a given topic).

Doctorant.e: Biancardi Beatrice