Virtual Human Simulation of Awareness

Bilyana Martinovsky

Virtual Humans are computer simulations of human behavior. They are used for interactive learning, studying, training, negotiation, instruction, and entertainment. In order to interact with humans, Virtual Humans need to be able to process language and gestures in different contexts but they also need to process emotion. Emotion is defined here as a sensory feedback recognition and a coping strategy, which coordinate decision- making on individual level and in interaction (Cornelius 2000, Lazarus 1999). Given this definition, how can we simulate awareness of own and others’ cognitive-emotive states? These talk proposes a three level Mind-Minding model for development of awareness of motion, culture and emotion using iterative Interactive Alignment (Pickering&Garrod 2006) and Reciprocal Adaptation (Gumperz 1982) (Martinovski 2013).
Three competing Mind-Minding theories have been proposed to explain how humans understand each other’s states, namely Imitation Theory (Iacoboni 2005), Simulation Theory (Stich and Nichols 1989) and Representation Theory (Gordon 1986, Hobbs and Gordon 2004). They correspond to three types of semiotic relations: similarity, co-presence and convention. Discourse analysis of linguistic-pragmatic manifestations of icons, index and symbols indicates the usage of all three Mind-Minding processes in human interaction (Martinovsky 2007, 2015). Can all these be used in simulation of Virtual Human interaction? In this talk I will show two Virtual Human simulations. One illustrates an application of a Culture-based Interactive Motion Model. The second simulation is based on an Embedded Mind-Minding Cognitive Model. To simulate awareness of Self and Other (Buber 2000) in interaction, we need an Iterative Three-Level Mind-Minding Model of task, emotion and communication processing.


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Sidansvarig: Goran.Sonessonsemiotik.luse | 2017-10-24