行为性与符号性填充作为虚拟现实中具身对话代理的延迟缓解方法
Behavioral and Symbolic Fillers as Delay Mitigation for Embodied Conversational Agents in Virtual Reality
AI总结：
本文针对虚拟现实中具身对话代理响应延迟问题，比较行为填充与符号指示器策略，发现行为填充能改善感知响应时间、临场感、类人性与自然性，且更受用户偏好。
摘要：
在虚拟现实中与具身对话代理（ECAs）进行交流时，代理的响应可能会出现持续数秒的延迟，例如当使用大型语言模型时，由于答案的计算量更大而导致延迟。此类延迟可能会导致不自然或令人沮丧的交互。在本文中，我们研究了填充类型，以减轻这些影响，并带来更积极的体验和对代理的感知。在一项被试内研究中，我们要求24名参与者在虚拟现实中与ECAs进行交流，比较延迟期间显示的四种策略：一种由对话填充和手势填充组成的多模态行为填充，一种仅包含空闲动作的基础条件，以及两种带有进度条的符号指示器，一种以徽章形式嵌入在代理身上，另一种则外部显示为思考气泡。我们的结果表明，行为填充改善了感知响应时间、临场感的三个子量表、类人性和自然性。当显示符号指示器时，参与者更频繁地将目光从面部移开，但这些可视化并未带来对代理更积极的印象或更高的临场感。大多数参与者偏好行为填充，只有12.5%和4.2%的参与者分别偏好符号嵌入条件和外部条件。
英文摘要：
When communicating with embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in virtual reality, there might be delays in the responses of the agents lasting several seconds, for example, due to more extensive computations of the answers when large language models are used. Such delays might lead to unnatural or frustrating interactions. In this paper, we investigate filler types to mitigate these effects and lead to a more positive experience and perception of the agent. In a within-subject study, we asked 24 participants to communicate with ECAs in virtual reality, comparing four strategies displayed during the delays: a multimodal behavioral filler consisting of conversational and gestural fillers, a base condition with only idle motions, and two symbolic indicators with progress bars, one embedded as a badge on the agent, the other one external and visualized as a thinking bubble. Our results indicate that the behavioral filler improved perceived response time, three subscales of presence, humanlikeness, and naturalness. Participants looked away from the face more often when symbolic indicators were displayed, but the visualizations did not lead to a more positive impression of the agent or to increased presence. The majority of participants preferred the behavioral fillers, only 12.5% and 4.2% favored the symbolic embedded and external conditions, respectively.
机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来，可能存在错误，请以论文正文为准。
