Development of an interaction-activated communication model based on a heat conduction equation in voice communication

In a previous study, we developed an embodied virtual communication system for human interaction analysis by synthesis in avatar-mediated communication and confirmed the close relationship between speech overlap and the period for activating embodied interaction and communication through avatars. In this paper, we propose an interaction-activated communication model based on the heat conduction equation in heat-transfer engineering for enhancing empathy between a human and a robot during embodied interaction in avatar-mediated communication. Further, we perform an evaluation experiment to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model in estimating the period of interaction-activated communication in avatar-mediated communication. Results suggest that the proposed model is effective in estimating interaction-activated communication.