From the Editors of the Special Issue

Welcome to the special issue on Intelligent Virtual Agents. Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) are interactive characters that – in spite of being merely 2D or 3D computer graphics models – exhibit humanlike qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as speech and gesture. They are capable of real-time perception, cognition and action, allowing them to participate in a dynamic physical and social environment. IVAs are getting smarter in mind, smoother in behavior and more enjoyable by the year – yet there is still much work ahead of us to understand how we, the real people, operate in our every-day life, and how we can then develop IVAs that perform comparably well in their human-like jobs.