Cultural dialects of real and synthetic emotional facial expressions

In this article we discuss the aspects of designing facial expressions for virtual humans (VHs) with a specific culture. First we explore the notion of cultures and its relevance for applications with a VH. Then we give a general scheme of designing emotional facial expressions, and identify the stages where a human is involved, either as a real person with some specific role, or as a VH displaying facial expressions. We discuss how the display and the emotional meaning of facial expressions may be measured in objective ways, and how the culture of displayers and the judges may influence the process of analyzing human facial expressions and evaluating synthesized ones. We review psychological experiments on cross-cultural perception of emotional facial expressions. By identifying the culturally critical issues of data collection and interpretation with both real and VHs, we aim at providing a methodological reference and inspiration for further research

"Our interaction was very productive": levels of reflection in learners’ diaries in teletandem

This investigation aims to analyze what Brazilian participants say about teletandem interaction in their diaries and how (or if) they reflect upon it. Data are elicited from 350 diaries written in English and stored in MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus) (Aranha, Lopes, 2019) and compiled by 333 fragments of text in which the most frequent word “interaction” (Leone et al., ongoing) occurs. The analytical framework is based on Moon´s (2004) reflective writing and Garcia et.al (2017) proposal of metacognitive operations. Results reveal that 41% of the fragments featured mere descriptions of the events that occurred during the interaction, while most (59%) of them presented some degree of reflection. In our data, reflection seems to be based on: (i) the assessment of the interaction, in line with Garcia et al. (2017)´s proposal that assessment represents a frequent metacognitive operation; (ii) recognition of different elements that are relevant for language learning in teletandem, i.e., partner’s collaboration and task specificities. Our findings also indicate that the other metacognitive operations (setting goals, planning, selecting resources, managing emotions) support or motivate the judgments made by learners. This finding corroborates the notion proposed in other research (Moon, 2004; 2010) that writing diaries may promote reflection, which is a fundamental aspect of autonomous learning

Realistic Lip Syncing for Virtual Character Using Common Viseme Set

Speech is one of the most important interaction methods between the humans. Therefore, most of avatar researches focus on this area with significant attention. Creating animated speech requires a facial model capable of representing the myriad shapes the human face expressions during speech. Moreover, a method to produce the correct shape at the correct time is also in order. One of the main challenges is to create precise lip movements of the avatar and synchronize it with a recorded audio. This paper proposes a new lip synchronization algorithm for realistic applications, which can be employed to generate synchronized facial movements among the audio generated from natural speech or through a text-to-speech engine. This method requires an animator to construct animations using a canonical set of visemes for all pair wise combination of a reduced phoneme set. These animations are then stitched together smoothly to construct the final animation

Restructuring multimodal corrective feedback through Augmented Reality (AR)-enabled videoconferencing in L2 pronunciation teaching

The problem of cognitive overload is particularly pertinent in multimedia L2 classroom corrective feedback (CF), which involves rich communicative tools to help the class to notice the mismatch between the target input and learners’ pronunciation. Based on multimedia design principles, this study developed a new multimodal CF model through augmented reality (AR)-enabled videoconferencing to eliminate extraneous cognitive load and guide learners’ attention to the essential material. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study aims to examine the effectiveness of this new CF model in improving Chinese L2 students’ segmental production and identification of the targeted English consonants (dark /ɫ/, /ð/and /θ/), as well as their attitudes towards this application. Results indicated that the online multimodal CF environment equipped with AR annotation and filters played a significant role in improving the participants’ production of the target segments. However, this advantage was not found in the auditory identification tests compared to the offline CF multimedia class. In addition, the learners reported that the new CF model helped to direct their attention to the articulatory gestures of the student being corrected, and enhance the class efficiency. Implications for computer-assisted pronunciation training and the construction of online/offline multimedia learning environments are also discussed

Example Based Caricature Synthesis

The likeness of a caricature to the original face image is an essential and often overlooked part of caricature production. In this paper we present an example based caricature synthesis technique, consisting of shape exaggeration, relationship exaggeration, and optimization for likeness. Rather than relying on a large training set of caricature face pairs, our shape exaggeration step is based on only one or a small number of examples of facial features. The relationship exaggeration step introduces two definitions which facilitate global facial feature synthesis. The first is the T-Shape rule, which describes the relative relationship between the facial elements in an intuitive manner. The second is the so called proportions, which characterizes the facial features in a proportion form. Finally we introduce a similarity metric as the likeness metric based on the Modified Hausdorff Distance (MHD) which allows us to optimize the configuration of facial elements, maximizing likeness while satisfying a number of constraints. The effectiveness of our algorithm is demonstrated with experimental results

A Palette of Deepened Emotions: Exploring Emotional Challenge in Virtual Reality Games

Recent work introduced the notion of ‘emotional challenge’promising for understanding more unique and diverse player experiences (PX). Although emotional challenge has immediately attracted HCI researchers’ attention, the concept has not been experimentally explored, especially in virtual reality (VR), one of the latest gaming environments. We conducted two experiments to investigate how emotional challenge affects PX when separately from or jointly with conventional challenge in VR and PC conditions. We found that relatively exclusive emotional challenge induced a wider range of different emotions in both conditions, while the adding of emotional challenge broadened emotional responses only in VR. In both experiments, VR significantly enhanced the measured PX of emotional responses, appreciation, immersion and presence. Our findings indicate that VR may be an ideal medium to present emotional challenge and also extend the understanding of emotional (and conventional) challenge in video games

WHATSAPP VOICE CHAT (WVC) AS AN EFL ONLINE LEARNING MEDIA AT ENGLISH CLUB OF SMPIT INSAN KAMIL SIDOARJO

The objective of this study was to figure out the steps of implementation one of the features of the Whatsapp Messenger application, namely Voice chat as an online learning media for students at English club of  SMPIT Insan Kamil Sidoarjo. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. The population in this study were all English Club members of SMPIT Insan Kamil Sidoarjo. The sample of this research is a chairman and 20 members of the English Club, as well as eight  members to find out the student's response. In this study, there were three stages, the first was pre-activity. at this stage, the teacher provides material reinforcement during class learning. The second is the Whilst activity, at this stage the teacher gives instructions using Whatsapp text combined with Whatsapp voice notes. At this stage students also implement the instructions given by the teacher using Whatsapp voice notes. After that, students fill out the submission list sent by the teacher. The third stage is the closing activity, in this activity the teacher provides feedback in the form of evaluating and appreciating the results of student performance. In student responses, it was found that  six  out  of  eight  students  interviewed  stated  that  they  felt  happy  with  the  online  learning through Whatsapp voice chat. Suggestions for other researchers to investigate the effectiveness of using features such as video calling to improve students' English skills

Implementation of ECRIF framework to improve speaking skills in a1 level students at Instituto Tecnológico T´Sachila in Santo Domingo 2021

To implement the ECRIF framework to improve speaking skills in A1 level students at Instituto Tecnológico T´sachila in Santo Domingo 2021.This research work aimed to review the state of the art of the ECRIF framework to be applied to improve the oral production of the English students at the T’sachila Institute. The information was collected using field research instruments such as an interview and a survey which helped identify the problems of the first-level A1 English students and teachers. With this vital information, the researcher identified the most appropriate speaking strategies to improve the students’ speaking skills to encourage and motivate students' interest in practicing their speech. The study had a quasi-experimental design that applied a pre-test and post-test. A proposal based on the ECRIF framework with speaking strategies such as group conversations, dialogues, debates, and picture descriptions were applied during the intervention. As a result of this research, there was a notable improvement in the student's pronunciation and intonation, lexical range, appropriateness of linguistic choices, grammatical accuracy, fluency, communications strategies, cohesion, and coherence according to the A1 level of English based on the CEFR of languages. Discussion of the research questions, conclusions, and recommendations are based on the applications and implications of this study.Maestrí