Intelligent Virtual Agents conference 2016 (IVA2016)
September 20-23, 2016
University of Southern California, Institute for Creative Technologies
Los Angeles, California

http://iva2016.ict.usc.edu

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IMPORTANT DATES
Paper, Poster and Demo Submissions
Submissions deadline: May 2, 2016
Author notification: July 5, 2016
Camera ready version: August 2, 2016

CONFERENCE
Intelligent virtual agents 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 allow them to participate in dynamic social environments.

The International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main leading scientific forum for presenting research on modeling, developing and evaluating intelligent virtual agents with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. 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
Befitting IVA 2016's Los Angeles location, this year’s special theme is "Entertaining Virtual Agents." IVA 2016 seeks to emphasize the synergy between intelligent virtual agents and entertainment. The increasing capabilities of intelligent virtual agents are bringing attention from the entertainment community, from NPCs in video games to developing agents that immortalize famous people.

Our focus on entertainment cuts across a number of research areas in intelligent virtual agents, spanning serious games to agents who mirror emotional expressions. For our special theme of IVA 2016 we encourage submissions in the following non-exclusive submission areas:

- Entertaining Pedagogical Agents
- Entertaining Agents for Companionship
- Advancements in the Entertainment Value of Intelligent Agents
- Narrative Story-telling With Virtual Agents
- The Role of Entertainment in Virtual Applications.

The conference encourages a wide range of contributions (workshops, paper, demos and posters) that address this special topic.


GENERAL TOPICS OF INTEREST

Design, Modeling and Evaluation
* Design criteria and design methodologies
* Evaluation methodologies and user studies
* Ethical considerations and societal impact
* Applicable lessons from other fields (e.g. robotics)
* Improvisational or dramatic interaction
* Dimensions of intelligence, cognition and behavior
* Models of multimodal perception and action
* Models of emotionally communicative behavior
* Models of conversational behavior
* Models of narrative and storytelling
* Theoretical foundations and formal models
* Learned, evolved or emergent behavior

Implementation and Applications of Intelligent Virtual Agents
* Software engineering issues
* Real-time integrated systems
* Portability and reuse standards / measures to support
interoperability
* Specialized tools, toolkits and tool chains
* Specialized modeling 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

SUBMISSION DETAILS
Paper, Demo and Poster Submissions
Prospective authors are invited to submit full papers (12 pages),
short papers (8 pages), or poster papers (4 pages). We also welcome demonstrations (please submit a 4-page description). Submissions should be anonymous and in Springer LNCS format. Detailed author instructions will become available on the conference website (http://iva2016.ict.usc.edu) shortly. All submissions should be made through the conference review system (see http://iva2016.ict.usc.edu).

For information about the doctoral consortium please see the conference website (http://iva2016.ict.usc.edu).


ORGANIZATION
Conference Chairs
David Traum, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Bill Swartout, USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Program Chairs
Peter Khooshabeh, Army Research Lab
Stefan Kopp, University of Bielefeld
Stefan Scherer, USC Institute for Creative Technologies