eMuu - an embodied emotional character for the ambient intelligent home
The ambient intelligent home requires new and socially acceptable interfaces as described in the introduction of this chapter. An embodied interface character, referred to as the “Home Character”, might suit the new challenges, such as providing a social entity for speech dialogues and offering natural feedback to the user. This thesis investigates the influence of the embodiment and the emotional expressiveness of a home character on the enjoyability of the interaction. In Chapter 2 the convincingness of emotional expressions of machines is investigated experimentally. The results, in combination with a literature review on interface characters in Chapter 3, are integrated into the requirements of a home character described in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 describes the implementation of the home character based on the requirements in the previous Chapter. In Chapter 6 the influence of the embodiment and emotional expressiveness of the home character on the enjoyability of the interaction is investigated experimentally. The result of the experiments, their consequences for the design of characters and suggestions for further research directions are discussed in the final Chapter 7.
