Development of a Weights-Shifting Device That Enhances the Expression Capacity and the Sociality of Virtual Agents

Abstract

Virtual agents use both visual and auditory information to communicate with their users. By introducing an internal weights-shifting mechanism, the user becomes capable of perceiving their facial expressions together with tactile information generated by the movement of internal weights. In this study, we investigate if this mechanism can enhance not only the expression capacity of a virtual agent but also its social aspects such as the user’s trust on the agent. In this paper, we report on the results of a pilot test that measured the trustworthiness of the virtual agent having different weight-shifting configurations from participants.