Enhancing Storytelling Experience with Story-Aware Interactive Puppet

Puppets are often used in storytelling, but there are few studies about puppets regarding the storytelling experience. In this paper, we introduce the concept of an ideal puppet for storytelling and discuss directions for puppet development. The ideal puppet is able to automatically animate itself in line with a story plot and positively influence the interactions in the storytelling dynamic. To see how children and parents would accept the concept, we created a preliminary prototype and conducted user study using Wizard-of-Oz method. Participants experienced enhanced immersion and increased communication between them by through the automatic movement of the puppet. They expected various roles from the puppet such as actor, support tool, and friend, which made various usage scenarios possible. The puppet should be developed in the direction of enhancing its advantages and including various usage scenarios, especially by combining the needs of both automation and manipulation.