Virtual Humans for the Study of Rapport in Cross Cultural Settings

As an increasing part of the Army’’s mission involves establishing rapport with diverse populations, training interpersonal skills becomes critically important. Here we describe a ““Rapport Agent”” that senses and responds to a speaker’’s nonverbal behavior and provide empirical evidence that it increases speaker fluency and engagement. We argue such agent technology has potential, both as a training system to enhance communication skills, and to assess the key factors that influence rapport in face-to-face interactions. We conclude by discussing ways the nonverbal correlates of rapport vary between Arabic and English speakers and discuss the potential of such technology to advance research and training into rapport in cross-cultural settings.