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Chapter 5PARTY HOSTS AND TOUR GUIDESUsing Nonverbal Social Cues in the Design of InterfaceAgents to Support Human-Human Social InteractionKatherine IsbisterFinali CorporationAbstractInterface agents have the potential to be catalysts and orchestrators of humanhumansocial interaction. To excel at this, agents must be designed to functionwell in a busy social environment, reacting to and conveying the kinds of primarilynonverbal social cues that help create and maintain the flow of social exchange.This paper sets context for the sorts of cues that are important to track and toconvey, and briefly describes two projects that incorporated such cues in agentsthat attempt to help the flow of human-human social interaction.1. Introduction1.1 The Importance of Nonverbal Social CuesNonverbal cues perform a variety of important functions in everyday humaninteraction, such as:Content and Mechanics: Nonverbal cues convey important content andconversational mechanics information, such as pointing out a location orsetting up spatial relationships that complement what is said, indicatingthat one’s turn is about to end, or setting a rhythm of emphasis (see Clarkor Cassell for more comprehensive discussion of this topic).Social Intentions and Relationships: Nonverbal cues also express socialintentions and interrelationships. For example, lovers will stand closertogether than strangers; angry people may move closer to one another,turning up the proximity volume as they may turn up the volume of theirvoices (Hall).