Dr. Art Graesser
Dr. Art Graesser is a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis and is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at San Diego.
Dr. Graesser’s primary research interests are in cognitive science, discourse processing, and the learning sciences. More specific interests include knowledge representation, question asking and answering, tutoring, text comprehension, inference generation, conversation, reading, education, memory, emotions, computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and learning technologies with animated conversational agents.
Dr. Graesser served as editor of the journal Discourse Processes (1996-2005) and Journal of Educational Psychology (2009-2014) and as president of the Empirical Studies of Literature, Art, and Media (1989-1992), the Society for Text and Discourse (2007-2010), International Society for Artificial Intelligence in Education (2007-2009), and the FABBS Foundation (2012-13). He has published over 500 articles in journals, books, and conference proceedings.
Dr. Graesser and his colleagues have designed, developed, and tested software that integrates psychological sciences with learning, language, and discourse technologies, including AutoTutor, AutoTutor-Lite, MetaTutor, GuruTutor, DeepTutor, HURA Advisor, SEEK Web Tutor, Operation ARIES!, iSTART, Writing-Pal, AutoCommunicator, Point & Query, Question Understanding Aid (QUAID), QUEST, & Coh-Metrix. .
On November 19, from 12:30 until 1:30 pm, in the LINK Lab (246 Nedderman Hall)
Dr. Graesser delivered the following public presentation:
Title: Learning Environments with Conversational Agents and Scientific Principles of Learning
Abstract:
This presentation will begin by identifying some principles of learning that are supported by scientific research but are not normally incorporated in the curricula and practice of instructors. Researchers at the University of Memphis are attempting to incorporate these principles in learning environments with conversational agents. These agents help people learn by holding a conversation in natural language and interacting with different media. The focus will be on two systems as examples. First, AutoTutor trialogues (two agents and human) are incorporated in 35 learning modules that help struggling adult readers learn comprehension strategies. Second, Operation ARIES helps students learn scientific reasoning in a series game with agents. For both, I raise questions about the feasibility and utility of creating a MOOC.