Virtual Environments for Training

Photos courtesy of K. Gallaway

Training materials developed using VET typically incorporate simulated devices that respond to actions performed by the user, such as pressing buttons and turning dials. Trainees learn to perform operations and maintenace tasks by practicing those tasks on the virtual devices.

USC / ISI is developing a pedagogical agent called Steve (Soar Training Expert for Virtual Environments) that supports the learning process. Steve agents can demonstrate skills to students, answer student questions, watch the students as they perform the tasks, and give advice if the students run into difficulties. Multiple Steve agents can inhabit a virtual environment, along with multiple students. This helps make it possible to train students on team tasks.

Steve pointing out a power light to the student

Team Members

Lewis Johnson, PI

Jeff Rickel

Marcus Thiebaux

Richard Angros

Sponsor

Relevant Publications

Survey of Work on Animated Pedagogical Agents

• W.L. Johnson, J.W. Rickel, and J.C. Lester. Animated Pedagogical Agents: Face-to-Face Interaction in Interactive Learning Environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 11:47-78, 2000. PostScript or PDF

• Johnson, W.L., Pedagogical Agents, invited paper at the International Conference on Computers in Education. Also to appear in the Italian AI Society Magazine.

Brief Overview of Steve's Capabilities

• Rickel, J., & Johnson, W.L., STEVE: A Pedagogical Agent for Virtual Reality (video), in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents, May 1998. PostScript or PDF

Book Chapters and Journal Papers on Steve

• Rickel, J., & Johnson, W.L., Task-Oriented Collaboration with Embodied Agents in Virtual Worlds. In J. Cassell, J. Sullivan, and S. Prevost (Eds.), Embodied Conversational Agents. Boston: MIT Press, 2000. PDF

• Rickel, J., & Johnson, W.L., Animated Agents for Procedural Training in Virtual Reality: Perception, Cognition, and Motor Control. Applied Artificial Intelligence 13:343-382, 1999. PostScript or PDF

• Johnson, W.L., Rickel, J., Stiles, R., & Munro, A., Integrating Pedagogical Agents into Virtual Environments, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 7(6):523-546, December 1998. PostScript or PDF

Conference Papers on Steve

• Rickel, J., & Johnson, W.L., Virtual Humans for Team Training in Virtual Reality, in Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on AI in Education, pp. 578-585, July 1999, IOS Press. (Received Best Paper award.) PostScript or PDF

• Rickel, J., & Johnson, W.L., Intelligent Tutoring in Virtual Reality: A Preliminary Report, in Proceedings of the Eighth World Conference on AI in Education, pp. 294-301, August 1997, IOS Press. PostScript or PDF

• Rickel, J., & Johnson, W.L., Integrating Pedagogical Capabilities in a Virtual Environment Agent, in Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, pp. 30-38, February 1997.

Research on Authoring Steve by Demonstration

• Angros, R., Johnson, W.L., & Rickel, J., Agents that Learn to Instruct, AAAI 1997 Fall Symposium Series: Intelligent Tutoring Systems Authoring Tools, Technical Report FS-97-01, November 1997, AAAI Press.

• Angros, Richard Harrington, Jr., Learning What to Instruct: Acquiring Knowledge from Demonstrations and Focussed Experimentation, PhD thesis, University of Southern California, 2000.

Relevant Prior Publications

• Johnson, W.L., Pedagogical Agents in Virtual Learning Environments, Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers and Education, 1995.

• Johnson, W.L., Plan Recognition in a Situational Context, in M. Bauer, ed., Working Notes of the 1995 IJCAI Workshop on the Next Generation of Plan Recognition Systems.

• Hill, R.W & Johnson, W.L., Situated Plan Attribution, Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35-66, 1995.

• Mankin, E., Computers learn to match wits with humans, USC Chronicle, Feb. 26, 1996.

• Rickel, J., An intelligent tutoring framework for task-oriented domains. In Proc. International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Montreal, Canada, pp. 109-115, June 1988.