# Virtual Humans in Museums and Cultural Heritage Sites
## 5 Conclusions  
The characteristics of both user avatars and three-dimensional animated agents depend on their intended use, function, and role. While users' avatars were more intensely investigated until the mid-2010s, and especially in relation to multi-user learning environments, the focus has shifted to the potential of DHs to engage audiences. With regard to agents, appearances do matter with regard to their effectiveness to an extent. As [PERSON] and [PERSON] explain, users who engage in self-disclosure tasks tend to be more intimate when addressing a more attractive virtual agent [52]. This is an indication that the use of or engagement with avatars or virtual humans follows similar patterns to social exchanges in real life. Behavioural realism, however, appears to be the most critical factor in the quest to foster visitors' cultural experience. Virtual agents' ability to sense, decode and respond to human gestures, body language and patterns of movements, and to reciprocate with verbal communications and facial expressions in accordance with the situation, is already embedded in experimental systems [44; 45]. While reciprocal, natural conversation capacity for agents has been developed and employed, it so happens that this typically takes place in science museums. This underlines the fact that such technologies are seen both as a fulcrum to engage audiences and as an exhibit of state-of-the-art technology.  
In several cases, users prompt DHs' narrations and the elicitation of information by choosing an effect from a given menu through different means of interaction such as gesture commands or by scanning tags. Useful as this may be, incorporating the capacity to understand verbal or even written questions about exhibits by visitors would also have the added benefit of, e.g., archeological museums gaining insights into audiences' actual interests, queries and thoughts about their collection items. Even if it is still a tall order to present systems that are able to maintain a natural conversation, reciprocity in verbal/written exchanges is something that would greatly enhance mutual communication. The main point that this review foregrounds is that multimodal and multi-digital solutions combine the strengths of AR versatility and discreet presence with the interactivity capacities of VR installations. While more advanced functionalities naturally occur in digital technology museums where the use of virtual humans not only provides a mediating agent between audiences and exhibitions, it may serve the entire cultural heritage sector to undertake and adapt such capacities to foster visitors by providing meaningful connections with cultural treasures in exhilarating and informative ways that may acknowledge the specificity and demands of the user.  
Conceptualization, S.S. and C.F.; methodology, S.S. and C.F.; formal analysis, S.S. and C.F.; investigation, S.S. and C.F.; resources, S.S. and C.F.; writing--original draft preparation, S.S. and C.F.; writing--review and editing, S.S. and C.F.; visualization, S.S. and C.F.; supervision, S.S. and C.F.; project administration, C.F.; funding acquisition, C.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek national funds through the operational program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH-CREATE-INNOVATE (project code: T1 EDK-2-01392).  
Figure 12: (**a**) Visitor interacts with DH with the use of HMD in an AR application, (**b**) use of portable device (AR application) and (**c**) VR application for remote users.