Social Appearance of Virtual Agent and Temporal Contingency Effect

In our previous study, we developed Pedagogical Agent with Gaze Interaction (PAGI), an anthropomorphic animated pedagogical agent that engages in gaze interaction with students. Using PAGI, we revealed that temporal contingency from virtual agents facilitate learning (temporal contingency effect), and proposed two hypotheses that may explain the result; 1) temporal contingency reduces extraneous cognitive load related to visual search, 2) temporal contingency prime social stance in learners which enhances learning. To assess more deeply into this matter, we tested two critical features of the agent, saliency and socialness. Two arrow shaped agents, of which differed in saliency, were employed. Apart from the appearance of the agents, the experimental design was identical to the previous study. University students learned words of a foreign language, with temporally contingent agent or recorded version of the agent, which played pre-recorded sessions from the contingent agents. From the result we gained evidence supporting the second hypothesis. Non-social agents did not trigger temporal contingency effect.