Papers about User Client Technology

Today the proliferation of social activity over the web in conjunction with the ever increasing number of connected devices is drastically changing the way we do things in our everyday lives. Instead of picking up the phone to call a friend, turn on our TV set to watch breaking news, tune to our favorite station to listen the latest hit or even open our pc to send an email all the more we opt to... Read more

Electrocorticography (ECoG) has emerged as a new signal platform for brain–computer interface (BCI) systems. Classically, the cortical physiology that has been commonly investigated and utilized for device control in humans has been brain signals from the sensorimotor cortex. Hence, it was unknown whether other neurophysiological substrates, such as the speech network, could be used to further improve on or complement existing motor-based control paradigms. We demonstrate here for the first time that ECoG signals associated... Read more

The notion that a computer can decode brain signals to infer the intentions of a human and then enact those intentions directly through a machine is becoming a realistic technical possibility. These types of devices are known as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The evolution of these neuroprosthetic technologies could have significant implications for patients with motor disabilities by enhancing their ability to interact and communicate with their environment. The cortical physiology most investigated and used for... Read more

Recent research has established the potential for virtual characters to establish rapport with humans through simple contingent nonverbal behaviors. We hypothesized that the contingency, not just the frequency of positive feedback is crucial when it comes to creating rapport. The primary goal in this study was evaluative: can an agent generate behavior that engenders feelings of rapport in human speakers and how does this compare to human generated feedback? A secondary goal was to answer... Read more

How does one go about designing a human? With the rise in recent years of virtual humans this is no longer purely a philosophical question. Virtual humans are intelligent agents with a body, often a human-like graphical body, that interact verbally and non-verbally with human users on a variety of tasks and applications. At a recent meeting on this subject, the above authors participated in a several day discussion on the question of virtual human... Read more

Foreign Language Learning (FLL) students commonly have few opportunities to use their target language. Teachers in FLL situations do their best to create opportunities during classes through pair or group work, but a variety of factors ranging from a lack of time to shyness or limited opportunity for quality feedback hamper this. This paper discusses online chatbots' potential role in fulfilling this need. Chatbots could provide a means of language practice for students... Read more

Artificial linguistic Internet computer entity, A.L.I.C.E. is considered head and shoulders above other artificial conversational entities, an ACE in digitaland. Three times winner of Loebner’s annual instantiation of Turing’s Test for machine intelligence in 2000, 2001 and 2004 judged most human-like machine, A.L.I.C.E. was additionally gold medal champion in 2004, for most knowledgeable programme in Chatterbox Challenge and won bronze medal for most popular ACE. As a modern Eliza, A.L.I.C.E appears as a dark-haired, blue-eyed... Read more

A chatbot named Freudbot was constructed using the open source architecture of AIML to determine if a famous person application of chatbot technology could improve student-content interaction in distance education. Fifty-three students in psychology completed a study in which they chatted with Freudbot over the web for 10 minutes under one of two instructional sets. They then completed a questionnaire to provide information about their experience and demographic variables. The results from the questionnaire indicated... Read more

AIML - A recently developed standard for describing knowledge for Robots using XML data structures is introduced. A very large English-based robot knowledge base developed using the standard is described. Many other knowledge-based projects based on other international languages are described. The English-based knowledge base is currently interacting with people at a rate of 100,000 inquiries per day. A unique web-based computer architecture (http://www.pandorabots.com) supporting the on-going development of the knowledge base is described. The... Read more

Responsive Virtual Human Technology (RVHT) involves the use of natural language processing and an emotive behavioral engine to produce natural, interactive dialogues with intelligent, emotive virtual-reality (VR) agents. RVHT has great potential for use in training interaction skills, such as those required for effective survey interviewing. However, our understanding of how people interact with responsive virtual humans (a.k.a. intelligent agents) is quite limited. Better understanding requires employing RVHT in training applications and conducting systematic use,... Read more