Computational models for the social simulation of small group interactions

The social simulation of small group interactions [1], e.g. walking up to a small group of people to start a conversation,  has many applications. For example, creating social robots and demonstrating social skills using intelligent virtual agents to teach children prosocial skills and better understand social behaviors. In this seminar, a work-in-progress is presented, which includes the development of a virtual character framework for social interactions in small groups. A basis for the framework is F-formations [2]: spatial-orientational organization, i.e. ‘free-standing conversational groups‘, in which the individuals position and orient themselves according to social constraints, such as their relationship status (e.g. proxemics [3]), to maximize the opportunity to monitor others during conversation. Our aim is to develop computational models for virtual characters with naturalistic behaviors learning from human-human interactions to better simulate social interactions in small groups [4]. The framework is a basis for scientific research into simulating naturalistic interactions in small groups, which will involve developing machine learned models of interaction opening using real data corpora.  Moreover, it is being used to design and develop games for children that develop their understanding of social situations (prosociality) and is currently being extended for used in Augmented Reality scenarios with virtual replicas of robots.

[1]. M. Vazquez, E. Carter, B. McDorman, J. Forlizzi, A. Steinfeld, S. Hudson. 2017. "Towards Robot Autonomy in Group Conversations: Understanding the Effects of Body Orientation and Gaze," Proc. of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '17).

[2]. A. Kendon. 1990. “Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters.” Cambridge University Press, New York Main Area (nonverbal behavior).

[3]. E. Hall. 1966. “The Hidden Dimension”. Doubleday, New York.

[4]. W. C. Ho, K. Dautenhahn. 2009. “Designing an Educational Game Facilitating Children’s Understanding of the Development of Social Relationships Using IVAs with Social Group Dynamics.” Intelligent Virtual Agents.