Affect sensing and contextual affect modeling from improvisational interaction

We report work on adding an improvisational AI actor to an existing virtual improvisational environment, a text-based software system for dramatic improvisation in simple virtual scenarios, for use primarily in learning contexts. The improvisational AI actor has an affect-detection component which is aimed at detecting affective aspects (concerning emotions, moods, value judgements, etc) of human-controlled characters' textual "speeches". The AI actor will also make an appropriate response based on this affective understanding, which intends to stimulate the improvisation. The work also accompanies basic research into how affect is conveyed linguistically. A distinctive feature of the project is a focus on the metaphorical ways in which affect is conveyed. Moreover, we have also introduced affect detection using context profiles. Finally, we have reported user testing conducted for the improvisational AI actor and evaluation results of the affect detection component. Our work contributes to the journal themes on affective user interfaces, affect sensing and improvisational or dramatic natural language interaction.