@article { paiva01, abstract = {This paper presents a research approach for guidance and control of story characters by young children. We show that it is possible for a child to be at the same time an actor, performing a role in the story, and an engaged and empathic spectator of the overall story. To illustrate the approach, we will describe Teatrix: a collaborative virtual environment for story creation by young children. In Teatrix, children control the actions of their story characters, which are implemented as intelligent agents in order to perform a certain chosen role, i.e., a villain or an hero. During the acting, children control their characters at different levels: at motor level (by defining the navigation and movements their characters will perform), at behavioral level (by setting tasks to be achieved by their characters), at emotional level (by changing the emotional state of the character), and at reflection-level (by justifying the actions and decisions taken). In order to combine these different types of control, we have introduced the concept of time-freeze in the story creation, combined with a tool for reflection, called “hot seating.” In this way, children are able to control their characters more deeply while, at the same time, feel like part of the audience of a play.}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics special issue on Socially Intelligent Agents - The Human in the Loop}, keywords = {mixed-control of agents, social agents, virtual worlds}, month = {September}, number = {5}, pages = {361-368}, title = {The Child Behind the Character}, volume = {31}, year = {2001}, author = {Ana Paiva and Isabel Machado and Rui Prada} }

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