Agents as Artists: Automating Socially Intelligent Em- bodiment (Extended Abstract) Sheryl Brahnam INTRODUCTION The whole application of the fine arts to the representation of men is based on the principle that the minds of those who are represented may be indicated by their forms. Paget, Quarterly Review, 1856 It is not surprising that artists are typically given the task of designing the physical appearance of embodied agents. Media artists are skilled at exploiting the physical charac- teristics of their characters for artistic effect. In the popular media, good guys and bad guys, intellectuals and bumbling idiots, are immediately recognizable. This is because the morphology of bodies and faces is inscribed with social meaning. In this paper we argue that agents should take over the job of the artist and learn to create their own socially meaning- ful embodiment. We focus on the face as it forms the locus of many of our social interactions and cultural experiences [1]. A number of researchers have begun to investigate the cultural aspects of faces for agents [2]. One area that has received considerable attention concerns facial expressive- ness [3, 4, 5], especially as it enhances the believability of the agent. The face, however, is a complex communication system where transitory signals, such as emotional dis- plays, facial posturing, and other behaviors, modulate a morphology that is also pregnant with meaning. As Bruce [6] has remarked, when shown a face, not only are we pre- pared to judge a person’s emotional state, but also their “personality traits, probably employment and possible fate.” Visual artists use this morphology as a language for rapidly communicating all this information and more about the characters they are portraying. In order to enable agents to create faces with clear cultural meanings, it is important to understand how people express and read meaning into facial morphology. Towards this end, an overview of some of the literature on the trait im- pressions of the face is provided along with some examples illustrating the artistic use of this material. After reviewing the relevant psychological literature on the person percep- tion of the face, we present two techniques for generating faces that produce specific impressions. Finally, we reflect on how this technology can be employed to enhance user interactions with embodied agents. THE PERSON PERCEPTION OF THE FACE Although several theories have been advanced to explain why certain facial characteristics consistently elicit specific impressions [7], one major theory is that the perception of facial features has adaptive value and that those character- istics that have the most influence on impression formation are based on those characteristics that demand the greatest attention for the survival of the species [8]. As Zebrowitz [9] explains, “We could not function well in this world if we were unable to differentiate men from women, friends from strangers, the angered from the happy, the healthy from the unfit, or children from adults. For this reason, the tendency to respond to the facial qualities that reveal these attributes may be so strong that it is overgeneralized to people whose faces merely resemble those who actually have the attribute.” Two of the most significant overgener- alization effects are the attractiveness halo effect and the facial maturity overgeneralization effect. The Attractiveness Halo Effect Our culture is not unique in encouraging its members to alter the appearance of their faces. Although religious mo- tives and a need to mark social status are factors motivating facial elaboration in other cultures, enhancing the esthetic appeal of the face is paramount. It is popularly believed that social benefits accrue to those who are most attractive, and current research supports this claim. People respond positively to attractiveness and associate it with positive character traits. Attractive people are considered more socially competent, potent, and intellectually capable than those less attractive. They are also perceived as being psy- chologically better adapted [10]. Facial abnormalities and unattractiveness, in contrast, elicit negative responses and are associated with negative traits. Unattractive people are considered less socially competent and willing to cooper- ate. They are also considered more dishonest, unintelli- gent, antisocial, and psychologically unstable. Negative reactions to unattractive people are also more severe [11]. What are the morphological characteristics that make a face attractive? To date there is no theory of attractiveness that is generally accepted, even though there is evidence of a strong consensus in judgments of attractiveness, cross- culturally, cross-racially, and even across species [12]. Contemporary research into facial attractiveness indicates that straightness of profile, proportion, symmetry, and closeness to the average (with the average being computed arithmetically, using the pixel values of facial images) are some important factors in attractiveness judgments [13, 14]. Of particular interest is the relation of profile shape to judgments of attractiveness, as profile shape is also associ- ated with facial maturity. Margo [15] believes a preference for a straight profile is related to a preference for derived features generally. Derived features are those that have