Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are interactive characters that exhibit human-like qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as facial expressions, speech and gesture. They are capable of real-time perception, cognition and action that allows them to participate in dynamic social environments.

IVA 2013 is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main leading scientific forum for presenting research on modelling, developing and evaluating intelligent virtual agents with a focus on communicative abilities and social behaviour. In addition to presentations on theoretical issues, the conference encourages the showcasing of working applications. Researchers from the fields of human-human and human-robot interaction are also encouraged to share work with a relevance to intelligent virtual agents.

SPECIAL TOPIC: "Virtual Agents and Cognition". In 2013 the IVA conference will have a special theme on cognitive modelling in Virtual Agents. This topic will touch on many aspects of Intelligent Virtual Agent theory and application. To name a few areas, we will especially encourage submissions that deal with IVAs and models of personality; theory of mind; learning and adaptation; motivation and goal-management; creativity; social and culturally-specific behaviour. Models must be explicitly related to IVAs but need not be implemented as yet. Application areas include social and culture training, heritage, entertainment and persuasive interaction. Issues include how systems relate to the original theory and how they can be evaluated.


IVA is pleased to announce that the 2013 Proceedings will be published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science/Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI) series. (http://www.springer.com/lncs)

TOPICS OF INTEREST

Design, Modelling and Evaluation of IVAs

design criteria and design methodologies
evaluation methodologies and user studies
ethical considerations and social impact
applicable lessons from other fields (e.g. robotics)
improvisational or dramatic interaction
dimensions of intelligence, cognition and behaviour
models of multimodal perception and action
models of emotionally communicative behaviour
models of conversational behaviour
design of virtual actors
Other (non cognition-inspired) conceptual frameworks and models for IVAs
Implementation and Applications of IVAs

software engineering issues
real-time integrated systems
portability and reuse
standards / measures to support interoperability
specialized tools, toolkits and tool chains
specialized modelling and animation technologies
applications in games, education, art, etc.
delivery platforms: desktop, single vs. multi-user, virtual or augmented or mixed reality, robots
future or current experience in various fields, e.g.: Interactive narrative and story-telling, computer games, art and entertainment, education and training, simulation and visualization
Special Topic: IVAs and Cognition: Conceptual Frameworks and Models
***Note that papers are expected to relate models discussed SPECIFICALLY to IVAs**

selecting a 'good' cognitive model for agents
(theoretical foundations, formal models for virtual agents and proofs of concept)
stages of autonomy (from avatars to agents)
cognitive models for perception and/or behaviour generation
simulations of groups and crowds
(crowd behaviours, action-perception loops in crowds)
learning and adapting IVAs
(learned, evolved or emergent knowledge and/or behaviour)
long-term management of IVA goals
drives, motivations, action selection systems for IVAs
socially and culturally competent IVAs
personality and emotion models for IVAs
Theory of Mind models for IVAs
evaluation approaches for IVAs with embedded cognitive models
Important Dates

Submission of all papers: April 14th 2013
Notification of acceptance: May 20th 2013
Camera-ready copies: June 3rd 2013
Conference: August 29th-31st 2013