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    Behavior Markup Language (bml) is being proposed as a standard XML interface between the level of behavioral planning and behaviour realization. It is an XML-based language that can be embedded in a larger XML message or document simply by starting a block and filling it with behaviours that should be realized by an animated agent. The main objective of this paper is to give comments on Behavior Markup Language and its possible usability in the area of.multimodal communication and its segmentation.

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    Behavior Markup Language (bml) is being proposed as a standard XML interface between the level of behavioral planning and behaviour realization. It is an XML-based language that can be embedded in a larger XML message or document simply by starting a block and filling it with behaviours that should be realized by an animated agent. The main objective of this paper is to give comments on Behavior Markup Language and its possible usability in the area of.multimodal communication and its segmentation.

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    30 views3 pages

    BML

    Uploaded by

    abuczkia
    Behavior Markup Language (bml) is being proposed as a standard XML interface between the level of behavioral planning and behaviour realization. It is an XML-based language that can be embedded in a larger XML message or document simply by starting a block and filling it with behaviours that should be realized by an animated agent. The main objective of this paper is to give comments on Behavior Markup Language and its possible usability in the area of.multimodal communication and its segmentation.

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    of 3

    The Use of Behavior Markup Language (BML)

    in the Segmentation of Communicative Events

    The main objective of this paper is to give comments on Behavior Markup Language
    and its possible usability in the area of .multimodal communication and its segmentation.
    First of all, it is essential to make a distinction between formal and informal
    conversations. Formal conversations have rules, strong social norms (keywords, symbolic
    gestures, high conscious control, displaced mimesis), while informal conversations are not so
    strict (overlapping turns, inconsistencies, discrepancies between modalities, iconic gestures,
    other casualities often occur). This distinction is important for the sake of defining
    spontaneity within interaction, and drawing our technological limits.
    Developers of BML point out that communicative interactions does not occur in a
    behavioral vacuum: talk-in-interaction is grounded on a coordinated and cooperative
    constraint system (Baron 2007) where turn-taking is a constraint more on politeness than on
    cognition. Consequently, it is an important question how temporal partitioning or
    segmentation occurs within the temporal scale of communicative events (= set of
    communicative, interactive behaviors). A possible solution to this segmentation is given by
    behavior markup language (BML).
    Behavior Markup Language or BML is being proposed as a standard XML interface
    between the level of behavioral planning and behaviour realization in the SAIBA framework
    for multimodal behaviour generation in virtual humans. BML is an XML-based language that
    can be embedded in a larger XML message or document simply by starting a <bml> block
    and filling it with behaviours that should be realized by an animated agent. All BML
    behaviours need to belong to a behaviour block. A behaviour block is formed by placing one
    or more BML behaviour elements inside a top-level <bml> element.

    For example:
    <bml>
    <speech id=”s1” type=”application/ssml+xml”>
    <text>This is an <mark name=”wb3”> example</text>
    </speech>
    <head id=”h1” type=”NOD” stroke=”s1:start”/>
    <gesture id=”g1” stroke=”s1:wb3” relax=”s1:end” type=”BEAT”>
    <description level=”1” type=”MURML”>...
    </description>
    </gesture>
    <gaze id=”z1” target=”PERSON1” stroke=”g1:stroke-0.1”/>
    <body id=”p1” posture=”RELAXED” start=”after(s1:end)”/>
    <cadia:operate target=”SWITCH1” stroke=”p1:ready”/>
    </bml>

    „This block coordinates speech, gesture, gaze, head and body movement by including a set of
    corresponding behavior elements inside a single <bml> element. Other possible behavior
    elements include torso, face, legs, lips and a wait behavior. Every behavior is divided into six
    animation phases. Each phase is bounded by a sync-point that carries the name of the motion
    transition it represents. The seven sync-points are: start, ready, stroke-start, stroke, stroke-
    end, relax and end.”
    (Vilhjalmsson et al. 2009)
    Table 1 below depicts a representation of partitioning of the continuous flow of one modality
    (movement) of an action.

    1
    Table 1: Behavior Synch Points http://wiki.mindmakers.org/projects:bml:main

    BML defines behaviour as a token of an action on a single modality. I would like to highlight
    the following key points of the system that are most relevant to the segmentation of
    communicative events:

    • behaviors are partitioned by different synchronisation points


    • the duration of a phase can be zero
    • coordination structures arise via alignment of critical/synchronisation points in EACH
    of available modalities
    • sequencing is specified by temporal ordering constraints: before and after
    • there is no leading modality, at least, speech is not a leader (we have strong evidences
    from psychology as well)
    • coordination is proactive and reactive as well

    Furthermore, BML incorporates other projects as well, including ECA systems,


    behavior planners, behavior realizers, repositories and tools. BML provides tags for feedback
    information from the behavior realizer back to the behavior planner. Other kinds of
    information from the behavior realizer has been suggested such as timing information or
    information on available body parts before actual execution starts. These could possibly be
    sent back to the behavior planner as responses to special queries. This is not yet part of the
    specification, but serves as a challenge to future research teams and needs further
    development.
    The main relevance of this project to my interests in communication studies is that it
    provides a recent formalized framework for the segmentation of communicative events, in this
    case alternatively embodied by the seven synch-points.

    References

    2
    Baron, R. M. (2007) Situating coordination and cooperation between ecological and social
    psychology. Ecological Psychology 19(2) 179–199.
    Vilhjalmsson, H. et al. (2007) The Behavior Markup Language: Recent Developments and
    Challenges. In C. Pelachaud et al. (Eds.): IVA 2007, LNAI 4722: 99-111, Springer-
    Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
    http://wiki.mindmakers.org/projects:bml:main

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