Supporting narrative understanding of children with autism: A story interface with autonomous autobiographic agents

W.C. Ho; Megan Davis; K. Dautenhahn

doi:10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580

Supporting narrative understanding of children with autism: A story interface with autonomous autobiographic agents

W.C. Ho, Megan Davis, K. Dautenhahn

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

5 Citations (Scopus)

102 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Recent studies in education for children with autism demonstrated that computer assisted learning can increase children's narrative understanding. However, software interfaces which include autonomous intelligent agents have yet to be explored in this context. In this paper we investigate how a narrative storytelling environment which is populated with virtual characters may help children with autism to understand narrative structure and to remember meaningful events within in a story. The behaviours of characters in the narrative storytelling environment are driven by a cognitive agent architecture and, in particular, a specially designed computational autobiographic memory (AM) which allows the virtual characters to remember and express emotional experiences. An application named virtual agent story interface (VASI) has been developed to visualise the agents' AMs and to help the children to reconstruct their own version of a story. In this paper we describe related research in the area, the overall design rationale of VASI, details of the VASI software design and the preliminary evaluation study.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Procs IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics
Subtitle of host publication	ICORR 2009
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Pages	905-911
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4244-3789-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580
Publication status	Published - 2009
Event	IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics - Kyoto, Japan Duration: 23 Jun 2009 → 26 Jun 2009

Conference

Conference	IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics
Country/Territory	Japan
City	Kyoto
Period	23/06/09 → 26/06/09

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10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580

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“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.”
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title = "Supporting narrative understanding of children with autism: A story interface with autonomous autobiographic agents",

abstract = "Recent studies in education for children with autism demonstrated that computer assisted learning can increase children's narrative understanding. However, software interfaces which include autonomous intelligent agents have yet to be explored in this context. In this paper we investigate how a narrative storytelling environment which is populated with virtual characters may help children with autism to understand narrative structure and to remember meaningful events within in a story. The behaviours of characters in the narrative storytelling environment are driven by a cognitive agent architecture and, in particular, a specially designed computational autobiographic memory (AM) which allows the virtual characters to remember and express emotional experiences. An application named virtual agent story interface (VASI) has been developed to visualise the agents' AMs and to help the children to reconstruct their own version of a story. In this paper we describe related research in the area, the overall design rationale of VASI, details of the VASI software design and the preliminary evaluation study.",

author = "W.C. Ho and Megan Davis and K. Dautenhahn",

note = "“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.{"} “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580; IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics ; Conference date: 23-06-2009 Through 26-06-2009",

year = "2009",

doi = "10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580",

language = "English",

isbn = "978-1-4244-3789-4",

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booktitle = "Procs IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics",

publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)",

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Ho, WC, Davis, M & Dautenhahn, K 2009, Supporting narrative understanding of children with autism: A story interface with autonomous autobiographic agents. in Procs IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics: ICORR 2009. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), pp. 905-911, IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics, Kyoto, Japan, 23/06/09. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580

Supporting narrative understanding of children with autism: A story interface with autonomous autobiographic agents. / Ho, W.C.; Davis, Megan; Dautenhahn, K.
Procs IEEE 11th Int Conf on Rehabilitation Robotics: ICORR 2009. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2009. p. 905-911.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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N1 - “This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ICORR.2009.5209580

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AB - Recent studies in education for children with autism demonstrated that computer assisted learning can increase children's narrative understanding. However, software interfaces which include autonomous intelligent agents have yet to be explored in this context. In this paper we investigate how a narrative storytelling environment which is populated with virtual characters may help children with autism to understand narrative structure and to remember meaningful events within in a story. The behaviours of characters in the narrative storytelling environment are driven by a cognitive agent architecture and, in particular, a specially designed computational autobiographic memory (AM) which allows the virtual characters to remember and express emotional experiences. An application named virtual agent story interface (VASI) has been developed to visualise the agents' AMs and to help the children to reconstruct their own version of a story. In this paper we describe related research in the area, the overall design rationale of VASI, details of the VASI software design and the preliminary evaluation study.

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Supporting narrative understanding of children with autism: A story interface with autonomous autobiographic agents

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