Architecture and interaction protocol for pedagogical-empathic agents in 3D virtual learning environments

Abstract

This paper proposes an interaction design architecture and an interaction protocol for the construction of pedagogical agents acting in distributed 3D learning environments. Agents designed based on the proposed architecture are able to interact verbally, non-verbally or both with the students, combining empathic and pedagogical behavioral parameters in order to support students during online educational activities. The representation of the agent results from both pedagogical and emotional factors and is related with the learning environment and its technology. The agent logic is based on three types of the learning environment's events: (a) emotional events, (b) pedagogical events and (c) events that are triggered by the environment itself. The proposed architecture is validated through the implementation of an autonomous pedagogical-empathic agent in the virtual environment of OpenSim. The agent observes students' anxiety during the learning process and reacts when their anxiety level is considered high.