| Recently, a variety of such cognitive models have been (and are still being) developed for different aspects of human behaviour. Examples include models for reasoning processes (Rips, 1994), visual attention (Itti and Koch, 2001), emotion regulation (Marsella and Gratch, 2003), mindreading (Marsella, Pynadath, and Read, 2004), stress and workload (Endsley, 1995), and moods (Beck, 1987). If such models are represented in a formal format, this opens the possibility to equip IVAs with them. However, the step from existing cognitive models (that are mostly used for simulation purposes) to computational models (that can directly be plugged in to a virtual (3D) environment, in such a way that the IVAs behave according to the cognitive model. Given the above, the main goal of the current Ph.D. project is to incorporate cognitive models within virtual agents. This goal can be split up into three important sub-goals: 1) to help establishing a library of cognitive models (at a conceptual, implementation-independent level) for a number of cognitive processes (in particular: mindreading, emotion regulation, and moods), 2) to implement these cognitive models into IVAs in one or more virtual environments, and 3) to evaluate the behaviour of the IVAs that are equipped with the cognitive models. |
