The goal of this paper is to integrate culture as a computational term in embodied conversational agents by employing an empirical data-driven approach as well as a theoretical model-driven approach. We propose a parameter-based model that predicts nonverbal expressions appropriate for specific cultures. First, we introduce the Hofstede theory to describe socio-cultural characteristics of each ...

Recent studies of humanoid robotics (Brooks 1998) have claimed that natural communication with human beings requires that the artificial agent possesses two essential features: embodiment, sharing a structurally and functionally similar body with the interlocutor, and situatedness, being embedded in the same socio-cultural environment (Zlatev 1999). However, almost no specific methods have been...

Complete genital self-mutilation (GSM), mostly a non-suicidal behavior, is a rare occurrence among patients with psychotic and non-psychotic disorders. This case report is on a patient who, in the shadow of severe psychotic manifestations with overwhelming socio-cultural contents, completely self-mutilated his external genitals. Emergency surgical and psychiatric management improved his conditi...

For Archer, everyday life is shaped, in part, by the interplay of social and cultural systems [2]. A Social System is an array of positions, occupied by persons, and a distribution of status (or ranking) over that array. A Cultural System is conceived as a collection of belief-informing propositions. A Socio-Cultural System is Archer’s abstraction from everyday life and is analyzable as the int...

In this paper, we examine whether embodied conversational agents can be used to implement socio-cultural markers. We investigate whether the accent of a virtual character, as a marker for culture, can cause cultural frame-shifts in individuals. We report an experiment, performed among bicultural and monocultural individuals, in which we test the above hypothesis. Our results show that a virtual...

OBJECTIVES To generate the Persian version of the Perceived Socio-cultural Pressure Scale. METHODS The study, done in Kerman, Iran, from November 2010 to February 2011, comprised 1200 volunteers. After translation and back-translation, the questionnaire's internal consistency, criterion and construct validity were evaluated, individual and global scores of the Perceived Socio-cultural Pressur...

as a living specimen of the eclectic but sensitive approach being promoted in the anthology. Eight sections entail: "the way we are, disease and mental illness, doctors and psychiatrists, nurses and patients, healing, last things, research, and ethics and purpose": not all medical categories in their own right and each with sub-sections. There is an advantage to the non-chronological arrangemen...

An epidemiological survey of subjects aged over 50 in a sub urban area of India was carried out. 406 subjects aged over 50were examined by making house visits. 13 were diagnosed as suffering from organic psychoses, 3 from schioephrenia, 98 from depression and 28 from other functional disorder. Depression was the commonest diagnosis made. 24.1% of the subjects aged over 50 in the community were ...