A Socio-Cultural Model Based on Empirical Data of Cultural and Social Relationships - Culture and Computing - page 71

A Socio-Cultural Model Based on Empirical Data of
Cultural and Social Relationships
Afia Akhter Lipi 1 , Yukiko Nakano 1 , and Matthias Rehm 2
1 Dept. of Computer and Information Science, Seikei University, Musashino,
Tokyo 180-8633, Japan
[e-mail]
1 Dept. of Computer and Information Science, Seikei University, Musashino,
Tokyo 180-8633, Japan
[e-mail]
2 Dept. of Media Technology, Aalborg University, Niels Jernes Vej 14,
DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark
[e-mail]
Abstract. The goal of this paper is to integrate culture and social relationship as
a computational term in an embodied conversational agent system by
employing empirical and theoretical approach. We propose a parameter-based
model that predicts nonverbal expressions appropriate for specific cultures in
different social relationship. So, first, we introduce the theories of social and
cultural characteristics. Then, we did corpus analysis of human interaction of
two cultures in two different social situations and extracted empirical data and
finally, by integrating socio-cultural characteristics with empirical data, we
establish a parameterized network model that generates culture specific non-
verbal expressions in different social relationships.
Keywords: Culture, Social relationship, Posture, Bayesian network.
1 Introduction
When people interact, their interaction patterns and behavior, such as the distance
they stand from each other, posture, facial expression, how much they gaze at one
another, and many other attributes depend on the interpersonal relationship existing
between them and the geographical boundary which is dictated by the culture to
which they belong [6]. Behavior regarded as friendly in one culture may, thereby, be
interpreted as inappropriate or impolite in another. Thus, in an era of globalization,
there is an increasing need for a raised awareness of the culturally specific behaviors
associated with various social relationships.
In order to identify the culture-specific behaviors involved in such interactions, this
study set out to develop a socio-cultural model in relation to non-verbal behaviors for
the purpose of creating appropriate nonverbal expressions specific to postures through
utilizing Embodied Conversational Agents so that users would be able to experience
culture-specific postures in situations involving different social relationships. In order