Speaking with Objects: Conversational Agents’ Embodiment in Virtual Museums

Conversational agents in virtual environments are an established approach for immersively conveying the information and narratives of museums and cultural heritage while expanding their accessibility to a wider and remote audience. The rapid development of large language models and text-to-speech technologies has raised the agents’ conversational level significantly, which allows their use for proactive guidance of visitors. This raises the vital question of how such agents should be visually represented to promote Knowledge transfer in immersive virtual environments. In this paper, we compared two representation concepts for agent embodiments in the context of a virtual museum by examining a stylized humanoid guide and a novel animism-based approach that enables users to talk to exhibited objects. Our work addresses the challenge of naturally introducing a virtual educational environment to users and encouraging their interest and engagement with the content. A user study $(N=29)$ revealed high usability and similar presence scores for the experience with each of the embodiments. A majority of participants showed a preference for the animated objects. In terms of user experience, they evoked significant stimulation and high levels of engagement. Our results suggest that agents that show emotions through appropriate word choice influence engagement levels. Based on our findings, we recommend humanoid guides for delivering general background information, while animated objects promote detailed questions about their own stories and a more stimulating exchange.