Building Table-Talk Agents that Create a PleasantAtmosphere
Masahide Yuasa
Department of Information Environment,
Tokyo Denki University
Inzai, Japanyuasa@sie.dendai.ac.jp
our system to detect the head orientation (right/left), and theheight of the human’s hand (high/middle/low) is detected using
a colored marker attached to a finger or chopstick. Fig. 1 showsthat the system can be arranged such that when a participant
puts up his/her chopstick, the agent also puts up his chopstickand starts to speak [4].

Abstract— We propose table-talk agents and robots that cancreate a pleasant and natural atmosphere. We investigate
appropriate expressions of nonverbal behavior and their timing
for use by these table-talk agents. Using appropriate behavior,table-talk agents may be able to enhance our enjoyment oftalking and eating at mealtimes. In the far future, whenconversational agents and robots are required to be high-quality
communication partners able to create a pleasant atmosphere ora sense of unity, these findings will be useful for improving suchrobots.
Index Terms—Animated agent, avatar, nonverbal behavior,conversation, table-talk, atmosphere

I. INTRODUCTION
Mealtimes are an important moment of reflection for sharedmemories and shared experiences. During a meal, families
have the chance to catch up on what is happening in eachother’s lives and to strengthen the bonds of the family.
Recently, however, our busy lifestyles have seen an increasing
number of families living apart, with relatives in different cities.
Thus, the opportunities for a family to have a meal together are
decreasing, and such a situation may lead older people to live
independently and eat alone. To solve this problem, several
researchers have focused on developing a conversational agent
for supporting elderly people [1][2]. However, talking with aconversational agent is not sufficient to create a pleasantatmosphere—agents must become not only conversational
partners, but also communication partners that can create asense of unity, just like human beings.
Therefore, we propose a table-talk agent that can enjoy
talking and eating with us and create a pleasant atmosphere.
The purpose of our research is to investigate understandable
and appropriate nonverbal behavior and its timing in order todevelop table-talk agents and robots. Using appropriate
behavior, these agents may be able to help us enjoy talking andeating and create a pleasant atmosphere.
II. OVERVIEW OF TABLE-TALK AGENTS1

Fig. 1. Table-Talk Agent
III. DISCUSSION
We conducted preliminary tests using limited agent behaviors.
Even though we only used gaze behaviors (gaze/not gaze atparticipant) and hand movement (put up/down chopstick), thechanging behavior was found to affect the participants’impression and behavior. These results may be related to thecreation of a pleasant atmosphere. Additional experiments arerequired to elicit more appropriate interactions, based on
research into nonverbal behavior, in order to create a pleasantatmosphere.

References1.

2.

We developed embodied agents that can use a synthetic voice,hand gestures, and chopsticks using the TVML tool kit [3].
Cameras set around a display in front of the participant allow

3.
4.

Bickmore, T. W., Caruso, L., and Clough-Gorr, K.,
Acceptance and usability of a relational agent interface byurban older adults. In CHI2005 extended abstract, pp.
1212-1215.
Sakai, Y., Nonaka, Y., Yasuda, K., and Nakano, Y. I.,
Listener agent for elderly people with dementia. HRI
2012, pp. 199-200.
TVML. http://www.nhk.or.jp/strl/tvml/.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar3I_zVrRFA.

Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
HRI ’13, March 3-6, 2013, Tokyo, Japan.

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