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Current Projects
SoCoRo 2016-2020
Past Projects
EMOTE 2012-2016
Funded by the EU under its FP7 programme to research the role of empathy in a robot tutor teaching mapping skills and energy sustainability using a multi-touch table.
RIDERS 2011-2014
Research in Interactive Drama Environments, Role-play and Story-telling - an EPSRC network funded from September 2011-August 2014. It aims to form and support a multi-disciplinary community of researchers with expertise in the theory, technology development for and applications of interactive drama, role-play and story-telling. It will develop a deeper understanding of the ways in which narrative constructs can be effectively translated to interactive media and a deeper understanding of the relationships between user, media and narratives. It will document and disseminate the current state of the art and generate methodologies for designing and evaluating technology-supported interactive drama, role-play and storytelling systems.
SerenA 2010-2013
The Serendipity Arena, Chance Encounters in the Space of Ideas. An EPSRC sandpit project funded September 2010-August 2013. It attempts to identify things that users did not know they needed to know, using more advanced search based on metaphor and analogy. With its users' permission, SerenA will proactively search for people and information in a user's local environment, both physically and virtually, allowing it, for example, to suggest that people who don't know each other might find some value in meeting (perhaps because they share an interest in particular aspects of the academic world), or to suggest a paper omitted by keyword search in a particular e-journal (because it has connections with other things of interest to the user who is searching).
eCute 2010-2013
Education in Cultural Understanding, Technologically-Enhanced - funded by the EU technology-Enhanced education programme under FP7. eCUTE is developing innovative technologically-enhanced learning approaches in cultural understanding and sensitivity. It will develop and apply virtual world simulations with intelligent interactive graphical characters embodying models of culturally-specific behaviour and interaction in scenarios developed via a user-centred design process. It will target two end-user types - late primary-age children (9-11) and young adults (18-25) - as contrasting groups over which useful generalisations can be developed.
SPIRES 2010-2013
Supporting People Investigating Research Environments and Spaces - an EPSRC-funded network running from August 2010-July 2013. SPIRES arises from a Digital Economy sandpit held in July 2009 on Effective Research Spaces and aims to bring together currently disparate groups interested in the design of effective research spaces and environments in order to create a new research community. Through a set of focused workshop and outreach activities it will bring together the three perspectives of physical spaces, novel technology, and social interaction to support a new synthesis of ideas and new conversations between groups currently not in contact with each other.
LIREC 2008-2012
LIving with Robots and intEractive Characters - funded by the EU Robotics and Cognition programme under FP7 and running March 2008-August 2012. LIREC aims to establish a multi-faceted (memory, emotions, cognition, communication, learning, etc.) theory of artificial long-term companions, embody it in robust and innovative technology, verify the theory and technology experimentally in real social environments, and provide resulting guidelines for designing such companions.
eCIRCUS 2006-2009
Education through Characters with emotional Intelligence and Role-play Capabilities that Understand Social interaction - funded by the EU Technology-Enhanced Education programme under FP6. e-CIRCUS developed novel conceptual models and innovative technology to support learning through role-play and affective engagement for Personal and Social Education involving complex social situations. It developed the interactive 3D environments FearNot! and ORIENT exploring virtual play and improvisational drama with synthetic characters. It targetted Personal and Social Education in which empathy and emotional engagement are key factors, using the hard problems of bullying and refugee integration in schools as exemplars.
ELVIS 2003-2005
VICTEC 2002-2005
VICTEC - Virtual ICT with Empathic Characters - was funded by the EU under Framework 5, running from March 2002 to Jan 2005. It investigated how virtual drama, emergent narrative and empathic characters might be used in Personal and Social Education, in which feelings and attitudes are as important as knowledge. It has produced a demonstrator for education against bullying called FearNot! (Fun with Empathic Agents reaching Novel outcomes in Teaching) and conducted a large-scale evaluation exercise with it in June 2004 at University of Hertfordshire over a period of two weeks, involving 400 children.
To get a flavour of what has been achieved, here are some avi files: WARNING some very large. In general too you will need a TechSmith codec to run them.
- The VICTEC "trailer" - an early impression of what the demsontrator was to look like. Of course things changed, but this still makes a good demo. 47 meg avi file
- FearNot! as run at the Herts evaluation, with episodes on relational bullying involving girls. There is no sound on this avi.***NOTE!*** 247 meg file
- The last scene in a physical bullying scenario in which things turn out OK (which in other endings they don't!). Only 6.5 meg.
- The emergent narrative version in which the camera is controlled to achieve various effects in relation to the characters - 135 meg
- An example of one of the characters in a short animation loop - a mere 300k!
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