Data from: Building a responsive teacher: how temporal contingency of gaze interaction influences word learning with virtual tutors

Animated pedagogical agents are lifelike virtual characters designed to augment learning. A review of developmental psychology literature led to the hypothesis that the temporal contingency of such agents would promote human learning. We developed a Pedagogical Agent with Gaze Interaction (PAGI), an experimental animated pedagogical agent that engages in gaze interaction with students. In this study, university students learned words of a foreign language, with temporally contingent PAGI (live group) or recorded version of PAGI (recorded group), which played pre-recorded sequences from live sessions. The result revealed that students in the live group scored considerably better than those in the recorded group. The finding indicates that incorporating temporal contingency of gaze interaction from a pedagogical agent has positive effect on learning.动画教学智能体（Animated pedagogical agents）是为辅助学习而设计的拟真虚拟角色。本研究通过梳理发展心理学领域的相关文献，提出假设：此类智能体的时间偶联性可促进人类学习。我们研发了一款带眼神交互的教学智能体（Pedagogical Agent with Gaze Interaction，简称PAGI），这是一款可与学生进行眼神交互的实验性动画教学智能体。本实验中，大学生借助两种条件下的PAGI开展外语单词学习：一组为时间偶联式PAGI（实时组），另一组为预录版PAGI（录播组），录播组播放的内容为从实时交互会话中录制的预设交互序列。实验结果显示，实时组学生的测试成绩显著优于录播组学生。该研究结果表明，在教学智能体中融入眼神交互的时间偶联性，可对学习产生积极影响。