Monday, February 20, 2006
Video game enhances international understanding
Is there anything computer games can't do? An interactive role-playing game
developed at the University of Southern California promises to increase world peace by teaching US soldiers to understand the non-verbal communications of other cultures.
A software module called "Social Puppet" provides non-verbal communications skills to characters in an existing game called "Tactical Iraqi", designed to teach soldiers to understand Arabic. The module makes characters shrug, wink, nod, wave, or cross their arms with sceptical hostility. Understanding such behaviour is something that existing automatic translation technology
cannot help with. Take a look here
for video demo of Tactical Iraqi in action.