Title:  Ph.D. Candidate

Contact information: jcotton2@cfl.rr.com

Year started in the program: 1997

Background and Research interests:
Prior to pursuing a graduate degree in HF psychology, I worked as a Professional Geologist investigating, and designing cleanup strategies for environmental contamination.  The virtual reality hype of the early 1990s caught my attention when it seemed plausible to create realistic, digital environments and “experiences-on-demand.” 

Though I remain interested in virtual environments and the human experience of such, I have broadened my focus toward intelligent agents as a whole (e.g., avatars, embodied interface agents, video-game characters).  With computing systems becoming more specialized and less expensive, there is a trend toward using intelligent agents as entertainment artifacts, knowledge sources, decision aids, and more generally as personal assistants. However, because the application of animated agents has been a recent one, relatively little empirical research exists describing what constitutes a useful, believable, engaging and coherent agent. 

I am currently focused on issues relating to the attempt to “humanize” agents through the display of emotion and personality and how variations of these factors may influence a user’s perceptions of an agent’s “character.”  Agent character has been shown to be highly relevant to a user’s satisfaction and success with a system, as well as to perceptions of agent believability, credibility and trust.  Credibility, in turn, is expected to be paramount to the willingness of a user to accept an agent’s advice (i.e., its persuasiveness), potentially leading to more successful interactions for a variety of agent applications (e.g., pedagogical agents, recommender systems, decision aids). My general hypothesis is that the same social constructs that are relevant in human-human interaction are also relevant to the creation of more usable, engaging and satisfying interface agents.

In my research, I hope to show a relationship between various components of agent nonverbal behavior and the social constructs that are critical in human-human interactions.  More specifically, I plan to manipulate facial expressions of emotion in an agent and measure users’ perceptions of agent believability, credibility and persuasiveness.  Adding such behaviors to embodied agents is exceedingly complex, and highly contentious from an ethical perspective. Technically, much of the difficulty in endowing agents with emotion centers on the development of a working model of “emotional intelligence” wherein the emotions of others are accurately perceived, and appropriate emotional responses are generated.  This is especially challenging when one considers the fact that many humans, themselves, are not emotionally intelligent. 

Publications:

Sims, V.K., Hughes, C., Moshell, J.M., Cotton, J.E., & Xiao, J. (2002). Recognition of computer-generated trees. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 46^th Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Cotton, J.E., Mayes, D.K., Jentsch, F., & Sims, V.K. (2001). The relationship between video game characteristics and player ability. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 45^th Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Mayes, D.K. & Cotton, J.E. (2001).  Measuring engagement in video games: a questionnaire. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 45^th Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Sims, V.K., Moshell, J.M., Hughes, C.E., Cotton, J.E., & Xiao, J. (2001). Salient characteristics of virtual trees.  Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 45^th Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Cotton, J. E.,  & Lampton, D. R. (2000). Team communications in a virtual environment. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 44^th Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Allen, R. C., Singer, M. J., McDonald, D. P., & Cotton, J. E. (2000). Age differences in a virtual reality entertainment environment: a field study.  Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 44^th Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Lampton, D. R., Rodriguez, M. E., & Cotton, J. E. (2000).  Simulator sickness symptoms during team training in immersive virtual environments.  Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 44^th Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Lampton, D. R., Parsons, J., McDonald, D., Rodriguez, M., & Cotton, J. E. (1999). Instructional strategies for training dismounted infantry in virtual environments.  Proceedings of the Interservice/Industry Training Systems and Education Conference, Orlando, FL.

Presentations

Cotton, J.E., Mayes, D.K., Jentsch, F., & Sims, V.K. (2001). The relationship between video game characteristics and player ability. Presented at the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Minneapolis, MN.

Sims, V.K., Moshell, J.M., Hughes, C.E., Cotton, J.E., & Xiao, J. (2001). Salient characteristics of virtual trees.  Presented at the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Minneapolis, MN.

Cotton, J. E.,  & Lampton, D. R. (2000). Team communications in a virtual environment. Presented at the 44^th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, San Diego, CA.

Allen, R. C., Singer, M. J., McDonald, D. P., & Cotton, J. E. (2000). Age differences in a virtual reality entertainment environment: a field study.  Presented at the 44^th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, San Diego, CA.

Lampton, D. R., Rodriguez, M. E., & Cotton, J. E. (2000).  Simulator sickness symptoms during team training in immersive virtual environments. Presented at the 44^th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, San Diego, CA.

Technical Report

Mayes, D.K., Cotton, J.E., & Newlin, M. (2000).  Design review of the introduction to psychology website.  University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL.

Other involvements/activities:
Member of the Affective Social Computing Laboratory (ASCL) at the University of Central Florida http://www.cs.ucf.edu/%7Elisetti/research/

Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Registered Professional Geologist (State of Florida)

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