Publication
The Persona Zero-Effect: Evaluating virtual character benefits on a learning task
Jan Miksatko; Kerstin H. Kipp; Michael Kipp
In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents. International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA-10), 10th, September 20-22, Philadelphia, PA, USA, Springer, 2010.
Abstract
Embodied agents have the potential to become a highly natural
human-computer interaction device (they are already is use as
tutors, presenters and assistants). However, it remains an open question
whether adding an agent to an application has a measurable impact,
positive or negative, in terms of motivation and learning performance.
Prior studies are very diverse with respect to design, statistical power and
outcome; and repeated interactions are rarely considered. We present a
controlled user study of a vocabulary trainer application that evaluates
the effect on motivation and learning performance. Subjects interacted
either with a no-agent and with-agent version in a between-subjects design
in repeated sessions. As opposed to prior work (e.g. Persona Effect),
we found neither positive nor negative effects on motivation and learning
performance, i.e. a Persona Zero-Effect. This means that adding an
agent does not benefit the performance but also, does not distract.