Animated Pedagogical Agents: Effect of Emotion on Learning

Enilda Romero, PhD. Candidate and Ginger Watson, PhD.

Old Dominion University

Introduction

To design animated agents that are

appealing to the human eye and provide the

illusion that the learner is interacting with a

socially intelligent counterpart like another

human, animated pedagogical agents must

present character building qualities such as

communication, animation, gestures,

personality and emotion. Of these qualities the

most challenging, yet the most valuable for the

creation of a relationship between the agent and

learner, is the conveyance of true life-like

emotions .

Participants

The participants of this study were 66 paid

volunteers who were undergraduate and

graduate students from a public university in

southeastern United States.

Figure 1. Interactive Environment with an

Animated Pedagogical Agent

Figure 2. Eye Tracking Profile

Research Design

Participants were randomly assigned to

one of three experimental treatments:

interactive environment without an agent (1),

interactive environment with an animated

pedagogical agent (2), and interactive

environment with an emotionally expressive

animated pedagogical agent(3). Primary

dependent variables were: achievement

measured by a 25-item multiple choice post-

test, engagement assessed through eye

tracking of visual attention, emotional

response quantified by a facial action

encoding system, perceptions evaluated by a

six-item Likert-scale survey, and attitude

towards the overall learning experience

determined by a five-item semantic scale.

Figure 3. Face Reader Analysis Visualization

Results

Achievement Outcomes

Treatment 1 M = 20.59 SD = 4.72

Treatment 2 M = 18.72 SD = 3.60

Treatment 3 M = 15. 68 SD = 3.73

Emotional Response

Treatment 1 M = 0.2721 SD = 0.2438

Treatment 3 M = 0.4842 SD = 0.2610

Engagement

Treatment 1 M = 0.030 SD = 0.049

Treatment 2 M = 0.082 SD = 0.087

Treatment 3 M = 0.077 SD = 0.063

Results indicated that there was no

significant differences between treatments for

perceptions, F (2, 63) = 0.948, p > .05, and

attitudes, F (2, 63) = 0.214, p > .05.

Research Questions

RQ1: What effect does the presence of an

animated pedagogical agent with facial and

verbal expression of emotion have on the

learners’ achievement, engagement, emotional

response and perceptions?

RQ2: How does the expressive nature of the

agent affect the learner’s attitudes towards the

overall learning experience?