VIRTUAL INFLUENCER MARKETING: ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND ITS EFFECT

Virtual influencers, computer-generated characters who are followed by many social media users, are increasingly contracted to endorse products and brands. However, little research has examined their effectiveness in influencer marketing. Filling this gap, we study anthropomorphism, an important feature of virtual influencers, and its role in virtual influencer marketing. Particularly, drawing from the marketing literature, we study four anthropomorphic elements, appearance, moral virtue, cognitive experience, and conscious emotionality, and their effects on followers\u27 purchase intention. These effects are modelled via the mediation of parasocial relationship with and perceived credibility of virtual influencers. Influencer-product congruence is posited as a moderator on the links between two mediators and purchase intention. An online survey will be conducted to test our hypotheses. This research extends the influencer marketing literature by exploring virtual influencer features and their effects on marketing effectiveness and provides knowledge on the anthropomorphism design of virtual influencers

Comparing Photorealistic and Animated Embodied Conversational Agents in Serious Games: An Empirical Study on User Experience

Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) are paradigms of conversational user interfaces in the form of embodied characters. While ECAs offer various manipulable features, this paper focuses on a study conducted to explore two distinct levels of presentation realism. The two agent versions are photorealistic and animated. The study aims to provide insights and design suggestions for speech-enabled ECAs within serious game environments. A within-subjects, two-by-two factorial design was employed for this research with a cohort of 36 participants balanced for gender. The results showed that both the photorealistic and the animated versions were perceived as highly usable, with overall mean scores of 5.76 and 5.71, respectively. However, 69.4 per cent of the participants stated they preferred the photorealistic version, 25 per cent stated they preferred the animated version and 5.6 per cent had no stated preference. The photorealistic agents were perceived as more realistic and human-like, while the animated characters made the task feel more like a game. Even though the agents' realism had no significant effect on usability, it positively influenced participants' perceptions of the agent. This research aims to lay the groundwork for future studies on ECA realism's impact in serious games across diverse contexts.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, preprint to be published in HCI INTERNATIONAL 2023 25TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION proceeding

A Freudian/Post-Freudian Reading of J.R.R.Tolkien's The Hobbit: The Bilbo-Gollum Encounter

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An Investigation into the uncanny: character design, behaviour and context.

Whilst there has been a substantial amount of research into the uncanny valley, defining research that contextualises a character as they would normally be viewed remains an unexplored area. Often previous research focused solely on realistic render styles giving characters an unfair basis that tended towards the realistic, thus facilitating only one mode of animation style: realism. Furthermore, characters were not contextualized because researchers often used footage from previous productions. These characters also differed in quality as various artists worked on different productions. This research considers characterisation as three key components, the aesthetic, the behaviour and the contextualisation. Attempts were made to develop a greater understanding of how these components contribute to the appeal of a character within the field of 3D computer animation. Research consisted of two experiments. Both experiments were conducted using an online survey method. The first experiment used five different characters ranging from realistic to abstract. Each character displayed three different behaviours and the characters were contextualized within a six panel narrative. Data obtained from the first experiment was used to refine the second experiment. A further experiment was conducted to further define how combinations of different behaviours and the context containing a character affected the subject’s perception. The second experiment used three different character types and the characters were contextualized within a video stimulus. Findings from the first experiment indicated a strong relationship between character type and context. Interest with the various characters changed depending on adaptions to either the behaviour of the said character or the contextualisation. Certain character types based on appearance where better suited to different contexts than others. An abstract character was more likely to be perceived positively by the subject in a surprising context stipulated by the behaviour of the character and form of the narrative sequence. Other characters such as one based around an inanimate object found a greater positive reception with the subjects under sad contextual constraints rather than happy or surprise. The first experiment took into account various independent variables obtained from the subject and aimed to draw parallels if found between these variables and the subjects perception of a given character be it positive or negative. However, these variables namely gender, nationality and age had no effect on the subject’s perception. In the second experiment, it was found that in order for the realistic human character to be perceived more positively, the behaviour needed to match the context. When a mismatch occurred the subjects began to perceive the character more negatively. The cartoon character was however not affected by the mismatch of behaviour and context. The experiment was further expanded when two different character types were compared committing negative actions and having negative actions inflicted upon them and what effect it had on the subjects perception. It was found that a cartoon character committing a negative action was perceived positively whilst a human character committing the same act was perceived negatively. However, when a negative action was inflicted on these same characters, subjects were more concerned for the human character than the cartoon character. Results from both experiments confirm the idea that various characters are perceived very differently by the viewers and come with predefined notions within the viewer of how they should behave. What is expected of one character type is not acceptable for another character type. Cartoon characters can get away with bizarre behaviour. A real human character may have some sort of novel unusual behaviour, whilst a realistic CG human character is assessed on how realistically (normally) it behaves. This research expands upon previous research into this area by offering a greater understanding of character types and emphasising the importance of contextualisation

A conceptual affective design framework for the use of emotions in computer game design

The purpose of this strategy of inquiry is to understand how emotions influence gameplay and to review contemporary techniques to design for them in the aim of devising a model that brings current disparate parts of the game design process together. Emotions sit at the heart of a game player’s level of engagement. They are evoked across many of the components that facilitate gameplay including the interface, the player’s avatar, non-player characters and narrative. Understanding the role of emotion in creating truly immersive and believable environments is critical for game designers. After discussing a taxonomy of emotion, this paper will present a systematic literature review of designing for emotion in computer games. Following this, a conceptual framework for affective design is offered as a guide for the future of computer game design

To Affinity and Beyond: Interactive Digital Humans as a Human Computer Interface

The field of human computer interaction is increasingly exploring the use of more natural, human-like user interfaces to build intelligent agents to aid in everyday life. This is coupled with a move to people using ever more realistic avatars to represent themselves in their digital lives. As the ability to produce emotionally engaging digital human representations is only just now becoming technically possible, there is little research into how to approach such tasks. This is due to both technical complexity and operational implementation cost. This is now changing as we are at a nexus point with new approaches, faster graphics processing and enabling new technologies in machine learning and computer vision becoming available. I articulate the issues required for such digital humans to be considered successfully located on the other side of the phenomenon known as the Uncanny Valley. My results show that a complex mix of perceived and contextual aspects affect the sense making on digital humans and highlights previously undocumented effects of interactivity on the affinity. Users are willing to accept digital humans as a new form of user interface and they react to them emotionally in previously unanticipated ways. My research shows that it is possible to build an effective interactive digital human that crosses the Uncanny Valley. I directly explore what is required to build a visually realistic digital human as a primary research question and I explore if such a realistic face provides sufficient benefit to justify the challenges involved in building it. I conducted a Delphi study to inform the research approaches and then produced a complex digital human character based on these insights. This interactive and realistic digital human avatar represents a major technical undertaking involving multiple teams around the world. Finally, I explored a framework for examining the ethical implications and signpost future research areas

Kromosomer - an experience in shared creative work and expression

This article is a reflection on the Kromosomer project, a storytelling performance held in both physical and virtual worlds, which was implemented and disseminated through digital, virtual and social media. The aim of the whole project was to search for an expression that could combine physical experience with virtual world. The project was also looking at how to deal with social inclusion. The motto for this enterprise was the traditional Norwegian legend characters who represent “the other,” the “not-normal,” as a pretext to address the question of alterity. These legends’ characters were re-created as avatars in the metaverse, where they were also freely distributed in virtual installations as unfinished artifacts, open to mutation. In the Second Life virtual world, participants could pick up avatars and create their own stories through snapshots, machinima, etc. The physical performance later used these participants/produsers’ interpretations and narratives of the avatars in stage design and in the storytelling performance itself. We describe and analyse the main work method used for this project — a shared creative process of collective and distributed creativity. The project encompasses different forms of expression therefore we will also focus on how metaphors constitute themselves as paramount to our way of workin

Eugenides\u27 The Virgin Suicides and Zuzak\u27s The Book Thief: Impossible Narration in Millennial Fiction

Analysing the development of narration in millennial fiction, particularly in Eugenides and Zuzak\u27s novels, which explores how consciousness and narration has become shaped by the advancements of technology

In Absentia Parentis: The Orphan Figure in Latter Twentieth Century Anglo-American Children’s Fantasy

Childhood development theory tells us that there are certain psychological processes that we all undergo during childhood, regardless of our national or cultural background. These developmental struggles can include some of the more ambivalent cycles—such as regression, which can be both a positive and negative phenomenon—but can also include some of the more beneficial processes like overcoming separation anxiety and creating and establishing a sense of self. One figure that is often marginalized in discussions of childhood development in children’s fantasy fiction is the orphan. In fact, book-length studies on the orphan figure in children’s literary fantasy are virtually non-existent; however, I believe that attention to this recurring figure in children’s fantasy is crucial to a better psychoanalytic understanding of children’s literature. Childhood developmental psychologists insist upon the influence of the mother and the father as critical to the healthy psychological development of the child. In a comic genre like children’s literature, the orphan—an inherently tragic figure—must still progress normally through the stages of psychological development to ensure the comic narrative. One way that these developmental processes are negotiated is through the intervention of conventions of the fantasy genre. In this study, I will be using childhood developmental theory in order to show how orphan figures in children’s literature—like Harry Potter—demonstrate these developmental dilemmas from various stages of childhood. Furthermore, by drawing on Brian Attebery’s definition of fantasy as both formula and mode, I endeavor to demonstrate how conventions of the fantasy genre—like magic, for instance—help to create a narrative that walks the orphan protagonist through these psycho-developmental stages, thereby allowing those characters the opportunity to process fundamental psychological processes in the absence of the parental influence that childhood developmental psychologists claim is vital to the child’s normalizing progress to adulthood. Ultimately, what I offer in this study is a nuanced analysis of the orphan figure in children’s fantasy, one that draws upon childhood development theory and theories of the fantasy genre in order to show how the fantasy orphan figure models successful resolution of crucial childhood developmental processes through hyperbolic externalizations of those psycho-developmental dilemmas