Life-Like Characters

Prendinger is a JSPS Research Associate at Ishizuka Lab, sponsored by a Research Grant (FY1999-FY2003) for the Future Program («Mirai Kaitaku»). The prime focus of his research is technology underlying life-like characters for web-based interaction scenarios. His main interests are Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Emotion-based and Socially Intelligent Agents. The top-level aim of his research can be called Social Computing which aims to support the tendency of humans to interact with computers as social actors. Here, the main task is to develop technology that reinforces the human bias toward social interaction by giving appropriate feedback. Prendinger's vision of social computing is effective and natural, or simply enjoyable communication between humans and computational devices.To implement the goal of social computing, he is involved in research about affective conversational characters (Social Intelligence), advanced character-based interfaces that use biosignals to recognize user emotions (Affective Computing), and interactive storytelling (Narrative Intelligence) The Personal Carreer of Professor Ishizuka: 1971: B.S. in Electronic Eng., Univ. of Tokyo 1976: Ph.D. in Electronic Eng., Univ. of Tokyo 1976: Researcher, NTT Yokosuka Laboratory 1978: Associate Professor, Institute of Industrial Science , Univ. of Tokyo 1980-1981: Visiting Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Elec. Eng., Purdue Univ. 1992: Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, Univ. of Tokyo 1992-Present: Professor, Dept. of Info. Commun. Eng., Faculty of Eng., Univ. of Tokyo 2001-Present: Professor, Dept. of Info. Commun. Eng., Graduate School of Information Science and Tech., Univ. of Tokyo His research topics: Artificial Intelligence, Multimodal Lifelike Agents, Multimodal Intelligent Media, Internet / Web Intelligence, Image Understanding / Synthesis

I Introduction.- Introducing the Cast for Social Computing: Life-Like Characters.- II Languages and Tools for Life-Like Characters.- Representing and Parameterizing Agent Behaviors.- Toward a Unified Scripting Language: Lessons Learned from Developing CML and AML.- APML, a Markup Language for Believable Behavior Generation.- STEP: a Scripting Language for Embodied Agents.- gUI: Specifying Complete User Interaction.- A Behavior Language: Joint Action and Behavioral Idioms.- BEAT: the Behavior Expression Animation Toolkit.- Galatea: Open-Source Software for Developing Anthropomorphic Spoken Dialog Agents.- MPML and SCREAM: Scripting the Bodies and Minds of Life-Like Characters.- III Systems and Applications.- Great Expectations: Prediction in Entertainment Applications.- Shallow and Inner Forms of Emotional Intelligence in Advisory Dialog Simulation.- Web Information Integration Using Multiple Character Agents.- Expressive Behaviors for Virtual Worlds.- Playing with Agents - Agents in Social and Dramatic Games.- A Review of the Development of Embodied Presentation Agents and Their Application Fields.- Interface Agents That Facilitate Knowledge Interactions Between Community Members.- Animated Agents Capable of Understanding Natural Language and Performing Actions.- IV Synopsis.- What Makes Characters Seem Life-Like?.- Some Issues in the Design of Character Scripting and Specification Languages - a Personal View.- Online Material.