9.1191, Confs: Embodied Conversational Characters

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-1191. Thu Aug 27 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.1191, Confs: Embodied Conversational Characters

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		    Elaine Halleck <elaine at linguistlist.org>
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                    Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
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Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Zhiping Zheng <zzheng at online.emich.edu>

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1)
Date:  Thu, 27 Aug 1998 14:13:20 PDT
From:  "Scott A. Prevost" <prevost at pal.xerox.com>
Subject:  Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 27 Aug 1998 14:13:20 PDT
From:  "Scott A. Prevost" <prevost at pal.xerox.com>
Subject:  Workshop on Embodied Conversational Characters

Call for Participation
                 The First Workshop on Embodied
                    Conversational Characters

                     With support of AAAI
                  Cooperation of ACM/SIGCHI

        Granlibakken Resort & Conference Center at Lake Tahoe
                     Tahoe City (North Shore)
                        California, USA

                      October 12-15, 1998


Recent advances in several core software technologies have made
possible a new type of human-computer interface: the conversational
character.  Conversational characters are autonomous, anthropomorphic,
animated figures that have the ability to communicate through multiple
modalities, including spoken language, facial expressions, and
gestures.  Unlike textual natural language interfaces, conversational
characters have the ability to perceive and produce the verbal and
non-verbal signals that identify discourse structure and regulate the
flow of information between interlocutors. Such signals include
intonational patterns, gestures, back-channel feedback signals, and
turn-taking protocols. These capabilities enable them to engage in
complex interactions with human users via natural speech rather than
complex command languages, menus or graphical manipulations.

Research on conversational characters has emerged from a number of
disciplines, including, among others, artificial intelligence,
computational linguistics, computer animation, computer vision,
psychology, cognitive science, virtual reality, CSCW, and HCI. This
diversity is naturally reflected in the broad range of active research
areas in conversational character interfaces.

The primary goal of this workshop is to advance the state of
conversational character research and development by identifying novel
approaches to the topics and issues listed below, and integrating them
into a framework for embodied, conversational human-computer
interaction.  A provisional program can be found at
http://www.fxpal.com/wecc98/.

Attendance

Attendance will be limited to 40 people.  There will be space for a
few attendees who did not submit papers.  Non-presenters wishing to
attend the workshop should submit a one page description of their
current research interests and their relation to the workshop themes.
Research descriptions should be emailed to prevost at pal.xerox.com no
later than September 14, 1998.  The list of attendees will be
finalized by September 18.


Workshop Organizers

Joseph W. Sullivan, FX Palo Alto Lab, USA (sullivan at pal.xerox.com)
Justine Cassell, MIT Media Laboratory, USA (justine at media.mit.edu)

Workshop Program Committee

Committee Co-Chairs: Scott Prevost, FX Palo Alto Lab, USA
(prevost at pal.xerox.com) Elizabeth Churchill, FX Palo Alto Lab, USA
(churchill at pal.xerox.com)

Committee Members: Elisabeth Andr, DFKI GmbH, Germany
(Elisabeth.Andre at dfki.de) Gene Ball, Microsoft Research, USA
(geneb at microsoft.com) Phil Cohen, Oregon Graduate Institute, USA
(pcohen at cse.ogi.edu) Barbara Hayes-Roth, Stanford Univ., USA
(hayes-roth at cs.stanford.edu) Kenji Mase, ATR International, Japan
(mase at mic.atr.co.jp) Clifford Nass, Stanford University, USA
(nass at leland.stanford.edu) Mark Steedman, University of Pennsylvania,
USA (steedman at cis.upenn.edu) Kris Thorisson, Lego A/S, Denmark
(kris at digi.lego.com)

Demos Chair:
Timothy Bickmore, ISII Inc., USA (bickmore at pal.xerox.com)

Additional Information

For more information, please consult the workshop web page:
www.fxpal.com/wecc98/

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