Page 163 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

146 Socially Intelligent Agents

mitments, goals, concerns or values that comprise its ego-identity. This mod-
els concerns for self and social esteem, social roles, moral values, concern for
other people and their well-being and ego-ideals. In IPD, the knowledge mod-
eled by the agent’s ego identity comprises a key element of how it interacts
with other characters and its response to events. For example, it is Carmen’s
concern for her son’s well-being that induces sadness. And it is her ideal of
being a good mother, and desire to be perceived as one (social esteem), that
leads to anxiety about discussing Diana’s tantrums with Gina.
The emotional appraisal module works with the dialog module to create
the rich social interactions necessary for dramas like Carmen’s Bright IDEAS.
Dialog socially obligates the listening agent to respond and may impact their
emotional state, based on their emotional appraisal. The IPD dialog module
currently models several dialog moves; Suggest (e.g., an approach to a prob-
lem), Ask/Prompt (e.g., for an answer), Re-Ask/Re-Prompt, Answer, Reassure
(e.g., to impact listener’s emotional state), Agree/Sympathize (convey sympa-
thy), Praise, Offer-Answer (without being asked), Clarify (elaborate) and Re-
sign (give-up). The agent chooses between these moves depending on dialog
state as well as the listener’s emotional state. In addition, an intent to convey
emotional state, perhaps distinct from the agent’s appraisal-based emotional
state, is derived from these moves.

3.1 Interactions from 3 Perspectives
To exemplify how the agents socially interact, it is useful to view it from
multiple perspectives. From Gina’s perspective, the social interaction is cen-
tered around a persistent goal to motivate Carmen to apply the steps of the
IDEAS approach to her problems. This goal is part of the knowledge stored in
Gina’s problem solving module (and is also part of her ego identity). Dialog is
Gina’s main tool in this struggle and she employs a variety of dialog strategies
and individual dialog moves to motivate Carmen. An example of a strategy
is that she may ask Carmen a series of questions about her problems that will
help Carmen identify the causes of the problems. At a finer-grain, a variety
of dialog moves may be used to realize the steps of this strategy. Gina may
reassure Carmen that this will help her, prompt her for information or praise
her. Gina selects between these moves based on the dialog state and Carmen’s
emotional state. The tactics work because Gina’s dialog (the annotations) will
impact Carmen emotionally and via obligations.
Carmen has a different perspective on the interaction. Carmen is far more
involved emotionally. The dialog with Gina is a potential source of distress,
due to the knowledge encoded in her emotional appraisal module. For exam-
ple, her ego involvement models concern for her children, desire to be viewed
as a good mother as well as inference rules such as “good mothers can con-