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Imitation as a first step to social learning in synthetic characters: a graph-based approach

Published: 29 July 2005 Publication History

Abstract

The processes and representations used to generate the behavior of expressive virtual characters are a valuable and largely untapped resource for helping those characters make sense of the world around them. In this paper, we present Max T. Mouse, an anthropomorphic animated mouse character who uses his own motor and behavior representations to interpret the behaviors he sees his friend Morris Mouse performing. Specifically, by using his own motor and action systems as models for the behavioral capabilities of others (a process known as Simulation Theory in the cognitive literature), Max can begin to identify simple goals and motivations for Morris's behavior, an important step towards developing socially intelligent animated characters. Additionally, Max uses a novel motion graph-based movement recognition process in order to accurately parse and imitate Morris's movements and behaviors in real-time and without prior examples, even when provided with limited synthetic visual input. Key contributions of this paper include demonstrating that using the same mechanisms for movement and behavior perception and production allows for an elegant conservation of representation, and that the innate structure of motion graphs can be used to facilitate both movement parsing and movement recognition.

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Cited By

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  • (2009)A Probabilistic Model of Motor Resonance for Embodied Gesture PerceptionProceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1007/978-3-642-04380-2_13(90-103)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2009
  • (2006)From motion capture to action captureProceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology10.1145/1180495.1180526(145-154)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2006
  • (2006)Imitation learning and response facilitation in embodied agentsProceedings of the 6th international conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1007/11821830_3(28-41)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2006
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  1. Imitation as a first step to social learning in synthetic characters: a graph-based approach

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        cover image ACM Conferences
        SCA '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics symposium on Computer animation
        July 2005
        366 pages
        ISBN:1595931988
        DOI:10.1145/1073368
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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        Published: 29 July 2005

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        SCA05: Symposium on Computer Animation
        July 29 - 31, 2005
        California, Los Angeles

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        View all
        • (2009)A Probabilistic Model of Motor Resonance for Embodied Gesture PerceptionProceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1007/978-3-642-04380-2_13(90-103)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2009
        • (2006)From motion capture to action captureProceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology10.1145/1180495.1180526(145-154)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2006
        • (2006)Imitation learning and response facilitation in embodied agentsProceedings of the 6th international conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1007/11821830_3(28-41)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2006
        • (2006)Haptic interaction system for co-evolution with reactive virtual humanProceedings of the First international conference on Technologies for E-Learning and Digital Entertainment10.1007/11736639_155(1252-1261)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2006
        • (2005)Reactive Virtual Human System with haptic sensation and adaptive functionProceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Cyberworlds10.1109/CW.2005.74(461-466)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2005

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