More than building agents
This lab explores how people communicate with agents: verbally, non-verbally, visually and interactively.
Agent Interaction Lab
Where human communication and agent technology meet
Exploring how humans communicate, collaborate and create with AI agents. The lab combines software engineering, psychology and research in speech and non-verbal communication to explore practical agent-based systems.
Software, psychology and speech
The work combines software engineering, psychology, speech communication, non-verbal communication and human-agent interaction.
Serious, technical, creative
The lab presents practical agent concepts that can grow into coaching tools, organisational design support and creative 3D workflows.
Demo 01
Eva Communication Coach
A simple showcase where a user talks to Eva, a communication avatar. The input is transcribed or typed, then analysed across three research-inspired dimensions: feedback, turn-taking, emotions and emphasis.
Feedback
Turn-taking
Emotions
Emphasis
Problem detection
Finality cues
Eva Communication Coach
Ready for interaction
60s
How this interaction works
Eva asks a short question, listens for up to one minute, then analyses the transcript for feedback, turn-taking, emotions, emphasis and repair moments.
Demo 02
Multi-Agent Solution Designer
Two agents analyse a practical organisational challenge from different roles: human psychology, communication psychology and technical system design come together in a practical solution concept. The agents work in a turn-by-turn chain: psychology input becomes software input, and software output becomes the next psychology input. The result may include an agent, but it can also become a workflow, software prototype, training tool or decision-support system.
Demo 03
Creative 3D Designer
A creative agent that designs 3D objects from text prompts and explains how the concept could become a printable object.
Demo 04
Emotion Regulator
Describe what happened. The agent shows whether the response is leaning toward support or analysis, then gives a calm, compact reflection and a small next step.
Vent
Analyse
Support
Next step
Demo 05
Idea Sharper
Work with two lightweight agents: one opens the idea space, the other focuses it into a more practical direction. Speak or type, then let the agents build toward a result.
Brainstorm
5 Whys
Prioritise
Refine
Design Thinking Agent
Opens the idea space with divergent possibilities, associations and design-thinking questions.Opens divergent idea routes.
Concept Focus Agent
Narrows the idea with 5 Whys, prioritisation and practical concept refinement.Focuses the strongest direction.
Session timer
3 min
Waiting for an idea to open up possibilities.
Result
Sharper idea direction
The result starts broad, then selects one promising direction and turns it into a next-step concept.
Idea
Demo 06
Agent Builder
Describe what an agent should do. The Agent Builder turns it into a structured concept: role, audience, interaction flow, prompt direction, boundaries and implementation hints.
Role
Workflow
Prompt
Architecture
Team conversations
Practise explaining decisions, asking clarifying questions or checking mutual understanding.
Customer contact
Train difficult service conversations before they happen with real customers.
Coaching and education
Make feedback, hesitation, emphasis and repair moments more explicit and discussable.
Everyday communication
Support people who benefit from clear, explicit conversational feedback without making diagnoses.
About
Expertise at the intersection of communication research and agent engineering
My name is Pashiera Barkhuysen and I combine software engineering with research in communication, psychology, speech and non-verbal behaviour. During my PhD research, I studied how people communicate in spoken interaction and what happens when communication problems arise, including in interactions with agents.
This site explores the next step: AI agents that do not only answer questions, but observe, analyse, collaborate, design and help improve human-agent interaction.
Research foundation: Audiovisual prosody in interaction.
Software engineer
Psychology background
Speech interaction research
Non-verbal communication
Human-agent interaction
Creative 3D workflows
Expert Review
Start with an agent-generated concept. Upgrade it with a human expert review
The agents can give you a first direction quickly. If you want a sharper version, a compact expert review can refine the output, improve the reasoning and turn it into a more useful next-step plan.
Instant draft
The system creates an initial communication analysis, solution concept or 3D design direction.
Optional expert layer
Request a human review when you want more clarity, feasibility and practical next steps.
Expert reviewImproved version
Receive a refined version that is easier to act on, share internally or turn into a prototype.
Contact
Interested in agents that take communication seriously?
Get in touch for collaboration, advice, research prototypes or technical concept development around human-agent communication, speech interaction, multi-agent systems and creative 3D workflows.