Comparing Ways to Trigger Migration Between a Robot and a Virtually Embodied Character

The question of whether to use a robot or a virtually-embodied character for applications in need of a socially intelligent agent depends on the requirements of the task at hand. To overcome limitations of both types of embodiment and benefit from advantages provided by both, we can complement a physical robot with a virtual counterpart. In order to link the two embodiments such that users perceive they are interacting with the same entity, the concept of “migration” from one embodiment to the other needs to be addressed. In this work, we investigate a particular aspect of this concept, namely how to best perform the triggering of migration, within the context of a physical activity motivation scenario for adolescents. We design two methods, a proximity-based method and a control, and compare their effects on adolescents’ perceptions of our agent. Results show that users perceive the agent as more of a friend and more socially present in the proximity-based than in the control condition. This emphasizes the importance of investigating different facets of entity migration for systems in need of employing both a physical and virtual embodiment for an artificial agent.