Special Joint Meeting

                IEEE's Robotics and Automation Society
                     Central New England Chapter
                                 and
                       IEEE's Education Society

                       are pleased to announce
                         the following talk:
                                       
                          Relational Agents

                            Presented by:

                      Timothy W. Bickmore Ph.D.
              MIT Media Lab's Affective Computing Group
                 (http://www.media.mit.edu/~bickmore)

                            Date and time:

                        Thursday, 15 May 2003
                           Program: 6:30 PM

                              Location:
           Bartos Auditorium (building E15), MIT Media Lab


ABSTRACT

What kinds of social relationships can people have with computers? Are there 
activities that computers can engage in that actively draw people into 
relationships with them? What are the potential benefits to the people who 
participate in these human-computer relationships?

To address these questions my work introduces a theory of Relational Agents, 
which are computational artifacts designed to build and maintain long-term, 
social-emotional relationships with their users. These can be purely software 
humanoid animated agents--as developed in Dr. Bickmore's work--but they can 
also be non-humanoid or embodied in various physical forms, from robots, to 
pets, to jewelry, clothing, hand-helds, and other interactive devices. Central 
to the notion of relationship is that it is a persistent construct, spanning 
multiple interactions. Thus, Relational Agents are explicitly designed to 
remember past history and manage future expectations in their interactions 
with users. Finally, relationships are fundamentally social and emotional, and 
detailed knowledge of human social psychology--with a particular emphasis on 
the role of affect--must be incorporated into these agents if they are to 
effectively leverage the mechanisms of human social cognition in order to 
build relationships in the most natural manner possible. 

In addition to applications in which the relationship is an end in itself 
(e.g., in entertainment systems), human-computer relationships are important 
in tasks in which the human is attempting to undergo some change in behavior 
or cognitive or emotional state. Dr. Bickmore has just finished a longitudinal 
study in which he explored one such application: a system for assisting the 
user through a month-long health behavior change program in the area of 
exercise adoption. The study demonstrated the efficacy of relational 
techniques to significantly increase perceptions of trust in and liking of the 
agent, caring by the agent, and desire to continue working with the agent. 

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Bickmore has a Ph.D. from the MIT. His primary research interest involves 
the investigation of the psychology of human-computer interaction and the 
design of computer agents that are designed to leverage this knowledge. Prior 
to joining the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab, Dr. Bickmore 
worked in the Media Lab's Gesture & Narrative Language Group for four years, 
where he developed Embodied Conversational Agents which emulate human face-to-
face conversation with users. Dr. Bickmore spent twelve years working in 
software R&D in the aerospace and high-tech industries before joining the 
Media Lab.  

MEETING INFORMATION

This meeting is co-sponsored by the Boston Chapters of the IEEE Education 
Society and the Robotics and Automation Society. It is scheduled for 6:30 PM, 
Tuesday, March 4th at MIT Media Lab (Building E-15) in Room 054. It is free 
and open to the public. For more information, contact: Rob Reilly 
reilly@media.mit.edu, Chair, Education Society; or contact Rich Maynard at 978-
439-5511 ext. 6221 or at the R&A Chapter email address: info@robotics-
boston.org 

DIRECTIONS

Directions to the MIT Media Lab, building E15, Bartos Auditorium (lower level 
of the Media Lab): the Media Lab located at 20 Ames Street Avenue (a very 
short walk from the Kendall-MIT 'T' Stop). From either entrance to the Media 
Lab, go downstairs to Room 054, which is off the downstairs lobby (signs will 
conspiciously placed in the lobby directing you to the conference room). The 
URL: http://whereis.mit.edu/bin/map?locate=bldg_e15 contains a map of the area.

For more information about the Robotics and Automation Chapter, visit their 
web site at: http://www.robotics-boston.org/