Shared Mental Models in Improvisational Digital Characters

Improvisational theatre is a unique art form that requires actors to co-construct stories on stage in realtime without the benefits of any explicit communication. All negotiation about the content of the scene, including characters, setting, plot, and relationships, must be done within the context of the performance. This negotiation process is a special form of constructing shared mental models between the performers as well as with the audience. This article explores the process of building shared mental models in improvisation and describes computational improv agents that employ this process in an interactive implementation of the improv game called Party Quirks.