Using Physiological Measures to Assess the Effects of Animated Pedagogical Agents in Multimedia Instruction

摘要

To examine the visual attention, emotional responses, learning, perceptions and attitudes of learners interacting with an animated pedagogical agent, this study compared a multimedia learning environment with an emotionally-expressive animated pedagogical agent, with a non-expressive animated pedagogical agent, and without an agent. Visual attention was measured using an eye tracking system. Emotional responses to the interaction with the agent were recorded using a facial expression encoding system. Learners' achievement was assessed using a post-test. Perceptions and attitudes towards the learning experience were collected using a survey instrument. Results indicated that learners that interacted with the emotionally-expressive animated pedagogical agent had higher visual attention on the learning environment and experienced significant effects for the sad and scared emotional states. Lastly, participants that interacted with the learning environment without an agent achieved higher post-test scores.