The Role of Eye Gaze in Avatar Mediated Conversational Interfaces

As we begin to create synthetic characters (avatars) for computer users, it is important to pay attention to both the look and the behavior of the avatar’s eyes. In this paper we present behavior models of eye gaze patterns in the context of real-time verbal communication. We apply these eye gaze models to simulate eye movements in a computer-generated avatar in a number of task settings. We also report the results of an experiment that we conducted to assess whether our eye gaze model induces changes in the eye gaze behavior of an individual who is conversing with an avatar.