CALL FOR PAPERS: SIVA'23
Workshop on Socially Interactive Human-like Virtual Agents
From expressive and context-aware multimodal generation of digital humans to understanding the social cognition of real humans

Submission (to be openened July, 22 2022):  https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/SIVA2023
SIVA'23 workshop: January, 4 or 5 2023, Waikoloa, Hawaii, https://www.stms-lab.fr/agenda/siva/detail/
FG 2023 conference: January 4-8 2023, Waikoloa, Hawaii, https://fg2023.ieee-biometrics.org/

OVERVIEW

Due to the rapid growth of virtual, augmented, and hybrid reality together with spectacular advances in artificial intelligence, the ultra-realistic generation and animation of digital humans with human-like behaviors is becoming a massive topic of interest. This complex endeavor requires modeling several elements of human behavior including the natural coordination of multimodal behaviors including text, speech, face, and body, plus the contextualization of behavior in response to interlocutors of different cultures and motivations. Thus, challenges in this topic are two folds—the generation and animation of coherent multimodal behaviors, and modeling the expressivity and contextualization of the virtual agent with respect to human behavior, plus understanding and modeling virtual agent behavior adaptation to increase human’s engagement. The aim of this workshop is to connect traditionally distinct communities (e.g., speech, vision, cognitive neurosciences, social psychology) to elaborate and discuss the future of human interaction with human-like virtual agents. We expect contributions from the fields of signal processing, speech and vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence, perceptual studies, and cognitive and neuroscience. Topics will range from multimodal generative modeling of virtual agent behaviors, and speech-to-face and posture 2D and 3D animation, to original research topics including style, expressivity, and context-aware animation of virtual agents. Moreover, the availability of controllable real-time virtual agent models can be used as state-of-the-art experimental stimuli and confederates to design novel, groundbreaking experiments to advance understanding of social cognition in humans. Finally, these virtual humans can be used to create virtual environments for medical purposes including rehabilitation and training.

SCOPE

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

+ Analysis of Multimodal Human-like Behavior
- Analyzing and understanding of human multimodal behavior (speech, gesture, face)
- Creating datasets for the study and modeling of human multimodal behavior
- Coordination and synchronization of human multimodal behavior
- Analysis of style and expressivity in human multimodal behavior
- Cultural variability of social multimodal behavior

+ Modeling and Generation of Multimodal Human-like Behavior
- Multimodal generation of human-like behavior (speech, gesture, face)
- Face and gesture generation driven by text and speech
- Context-aware generation of multimodal human-like behavior
- Modeling of style and expressivity for the generation of multimodal behavior
- Modeling paralinguistic cues for multimodal behavior generation
- Few-shots or zero-shot transfer of style and expressivity
- Slightly-supervised adaptation of multimodal behavior to context

+ Psychology and Cognition of of Multimodal Human-like Behavior
- Cognition of deep fakes and ultra-realistic digital manipulation of human-like behavior
- Social agents/robots as tools for capturing, measuring and understanding multimodal behavior (speech, gesture, face)
- Neuroscience and social cognition of real humans using virtual agents and physical robots

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission Deadline September, 12 2022 
Notification of Acceptance: October, 15 2022 
Camera-ready deadline: October, 31 2022
Workshop: January, 4 or 5 2023

VENUE

The SIVA workshop is organized as a satellite workshop of the IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition 2023. The workshop will be collocated with the FG 2023 and WACV 2023 conferences at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort, Hawaii, USA.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND SUBMISSION DETAILS

Submissions must be original and not published or submitted elsewhere.  Short papers of 3 pages excluding references encourage submissions of early research in original emerging fields. Long paper of 6 to 8 pages excluding references promote the presentation of strongly original contributions, positional or survey papers. The manuscript should be formatted according to the Word or Latex template provided on the workshop website.  All submissions will be reviewed by 3 reviewers. The reviewing process will be single-blinded. Authors will be asked to disclose possible conflict of interests, such as cooperation in the previous two years. Moreover, care will be taken to avoid reviewers from the same institution as the authors.  Authors should submit their articles in a single pdf file in the submission website - no later than September, 12 2022. Notification of acceptance will be sent by October, 15 2022, and the camera-ready version of the papers revised according to the reviewers comments should be submitted by October, 31 2022. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the FG'2023 conference. More information can be found on the SIVA website.

DIVERSITY, EQUALITY, AND INCLUSION

The format of this workshop will be hybrid online and onsite. This format proposes format of scientific exchanges in order to satisfy travel restrictions and COVID sanitary precautions, to promote inclusion in the research community (travel costs are high, online presentations will encourage research contributions from geographical regions which would normally be excluded), and to consider ecological issues (e.g., CO2 footprint). The organizing committee is committed to paying attention to equality, diversity, and inclusivity in consideration of invited speakers. This effort starts from the organizing committee and the invited speakers to the program committee.


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
🌸 Nicolas Obin, STMS Lab (Ircam, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, ministère de la Culture)
🌸 Ryo Ishii, NTT Human Informatics Laboratories
🌸 Rachael E. Jack, University of Glasgow
🌸 Louis-Philippe Morency, Carnegie Mellon University
🌸 Catherine Pelachaud, CNRS - ISIR, Sorbonne Université