Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 6.
Scene from the ISLET Game
anthropologists are developing validated sociocultural data sets for Afghanistan and
other cultures of interest, consisting of annotated dialogs of cross-cultural
interactions. Experts in artificial intelligence then use these data to develop logical
models of sociocultural behavior in different cultures, based upon a formal ontology
of microsocial concepts underlying interpersonal communication. This in turn is being
used to create an enhanced version of the VRP architecture in which agent intent
planning utilizes explicit validated models of sociocultural reasoning for different
cultures, which can be swapped in and out to enable agents to model a variety of
different cultural characteristics.
The following example illustrates how CultureCom cultural models will be
developed and used. American culture and Afghan culture differ in the way they
express promises and commitments. Afghans sometimes agree to a request as a way
of being socially agreeable, without making a firm commitment. In CultureCom, we
explicitly model the sociocultural inferences that can be made from communicative
acts, such as whether a statement of agreement constitutes a firm promise and
commitment. This in turn can be used to ensure that the non-player character's actions
are consistent with the culture throughout, and can also provide helpful feedback to
the learner. For example, it can help learners to recognize when intercultural
misunderstandings can arise due to different views of what has been promised and
agreed to.
The C-CORE project is developing a set of authoring tools and workflow
management tools to facilitate the creation and maintenance of cultural models. It
enables culture researchers to incorporate sociocultural data from a variety of sources,
