Kesan tahap realistik karakter animasi talking-head ke atas emosi dan prestasi pelajar : satu kajian awal

Animasi talking-head merupakan animasi arahan yang mampu membantu pembelajaran kemahiran sebutan sesuatu perkataan secara betul dan tepat. Namun, kesilapan dalam penggunaan karakter animasi memberi kesan negatif kepada pelajar. Kajian ini memfokus kepada isu Uncanny Valley yang dapat memberi kesan kepada emosi pelajar akibat daripada karakter animasi yang hampir menyerupai manusia. Justeru, kajian ini menilai penggunaan animasi talking-head yang berbeza tahap realistik terhadap pembelajaran sebutan perkataan di Kolej Komuniti. Penilaian keberkesanan animasi ini diukur melalui ujian sebutan dan ujian emosi mengguna soal selidik AEQ. Empat perisian animasi talking-head dengan tahap realistik berbeza dibangun untuk diuji dan setiap perisian tersebut dipelajari secara kendiri oleh sekumpulan pelajar yang terdiri daripada 20 orang. Jumlah keseluruhan sampel ialah 80 orang terdiri daripada pelajar di empat buah kolej komuniti di Perak. Ujian statistik deskriptif seperti nilai min, sisihan piawai dan peratus diguna bagi menjawab persoalan kajian. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan perisian animasi talking-headtiga dimensi tidak realistik (3D-TR) memperoleh peratusan tertinggi dari sudut emosi dan prestasi sebutan pelajar manakala perisian animasi talking-head tiga dimensi realistik (3D-R) memperoleh peratusan terendah dari kedua-dua aspek tersebut. Justeru, penggunaan karakter animasi tiga dimensi talking-head yang tidak realistik merupakan tahap realistik yang terbaik untuk membentuk emosi yang positif seterusnya berpotensi meningkat prestasi pelajar

Effect of emotion and articulation of speech on the Uncanny Valley in virtual characters

This paper presents a study of how exaggerated facial expression in the lower face region affects perception of emotion and the Uncanny Valley phenomenon in realistic, human-like, virtual characters. Characters communicated the six basic emotions, anger, disgust, fear, sadness and surprise with normal and exaggerated mouth movements. Measures were taken for perceived familiarity and human-likeness. The results showed that: an increased intensity of articulation significantly reduced the uncanny for anger; yet increased perception of the uncanny for characters expressing happiness with an exaggeration of mouth movement. The practical implications of these findings are considered when controlling the uncanny in virtual characters

A framework for human-like behavior in an immersive virtual world

Just as readers feel immersed when the story-line adheres to their experiences, users will more easily feel immersed in a virtual environment if the behavior of the characters in that environment adheres to their expectations, based on their life-long observations in the real world. This paper introduces a framework that allows authors to establish natural, human-like behavior, physical interaction and emotional engagement of characters living in a virtual environment. Represented by realistic virtual characters, this framework allows people to feel immersed in an Internet based virtual world in which they can meet and share experiences in a natural way as they can meet and share experiences in real life. Rather than just being visualized in a 3D space, the virtual characters (autonomous agents as well as avatars representing users) in the immersive environment facilitate social interaction and multi-party collaboration, mixing virtual with real

Evaluation of the Interaction with a Digital 3D Testimony

Conversations with Holocaust survivors are an integral part of education in German schools and universities as well as part of the German memory culture. The goal of interactive stereoscopic digital Holocaust testimonies is to preserve the effects of meeting and interacting with these contemporary witnesses as faithfully as possible. These virtual humans are non-synthetic, i.e., there exists no underlying system, which extrapolates from recorded data to synthesize and generate new answers. This means that immersion-breaking difficulties common to synthetic virtual humans, such as the audio-visual uncanny valley, can be prevented. Issues resulting from technical constraints, technological barriers to entry or errors, machine and human alike, during the design and creation of the application cannot, however, be ruled out. Therefore, I conducted a preliminary study to evaluate how people perceive this first German-speaking digital interactive 3D Holocaust testimony. I investigated how the study participants perceived the technical and semantic quality of recording and display, the difficulties in using and interacting, the accuracy and relevance of the answers given as well as the authenticity and emotiveness of the virtual contemporary witness. In this paper, I detail how the study was set up, the results of the survey, and my analysis of the data.Zeitzeugengespräche mit Holocaust-Überlebenden sind fester Bestandteil der Bildung an Schulen und Universitäten sowie Teil der deutschen Erinnerungskultur. Ziel interaktiver stereoskopischer digitaler Holocaustzeugnisse ist es, die Auswirkungen der Begegnung und Interaktion mit diesen Zeitzeug*innen so realitätstreu wie möglich zu bewahren. Diese virtuellen Menschen sind nicht-synthetisch, es gibt also kein zugrundeliegendes System, das aus aufgezeichneten Daten extrapoliert, um neue Antworten zu synthetisieren und zu generieren. Dadurch können einige immersionsbrechende Eigenschaften, wie das audiovisuelle Uncanny Valley, verhindert werden. Probleme, die sich aus technischen Beschränkungen, technologischen Eintrittsbarrieren oder menschlichen und technischen Fehlern während des Designs und der Erstellung der Anwendung ergeben, können jedoch nicht ausgeschlossen werden. Deshalb habe ich anhand des 3D-Zeugnisses des Holocaust-Überlebenden Abba Naor eine Vorstudie durchgeführt, um zu evaluieren, wie Menschen auf dieses erste deutschsprachige digitale interaktive 3D-Zeugnis reagieren. Ich untersuchte, wie die technische und semantische Qualität der Aufzeichnung und Darstellung, die Schwierigkeiten bei der Nutzung und Interaktion, die Genauigkeit und Relevanz der gegebenen Antworten sowie die Authentizität und Emotionalität des virtuellen Zeitzeugen wahrgenommen werden. In diesem Beitrag erläutere ich die Spezifikationen des Aufbaus, die Ergebnisse der Erhebung und meine Analyse der Ergebnisse

Preserving Conversations with Contemporary Holocaust Witnesses

Conversations with Holocaust survivors are an integral part of education at schools and universities as well as part of the German memory culture. The goal of interactive stereoscopic digital Holocaust testimonies is to preserve the effects of meeting and interacting with these contemporary witnesses as faithfully as possible. These virtual humans are non-synthetic. Instead, all their actions, such as answers and movements, are pre-recorded. We conducted a preliminary study to gauge how people perceive this first German-speaking digital interactive Holocaust testimony. The focus of our investigation is the ease-of-use, the accuracy and relevance of the answers given as well as the authenticity and emotiveness of the virtual contemporary witness, as perceived by the participants. We found that digital 3D testimonies can convey emotions and lead to enjoyable experiences, which correlates with the frequency of correctly matched answers

The Influence of Conversational Agents on Socially Desirable Responding

Conversational agents (CAs) are becoming an increasingly common component in many information systems. The ubiquity of CAs in cell phones, entertainment systems, and messaging applications has led to a growing need to understand how design choices made when developing CAs influence user interactions. In this study, we explore the use case of CAs that gather potentially sensitive information from people-”for example, in a medical interview. Using a laboratory experiment, we examine the influence of CA responsiveness and embodiment on the answers people give in response to sensitive and non-sensitive questions. The results show that for sensitive questions, the responsiveness of the CA increased the social desirability of the responses given by participants

A randomised controlled test in virtual reality of the effects on paranoid thoughts of virtual humans’ facial animation and expression

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used in the study and treatment of paranoia. This is based on the finding that people who mistakenly perceive hostile intent from other people also perceive similar threat from virtual characters. However, there has been no study of the programming characteristics of virtual characters that may influence their interpretation. We set out to investigate how the animation and expressions of virtual humans may affect paranoia. In a two-by-two factor, between-groups, randomized design, 122 individuals with elevated paranoia rated their perceptions of virtual humans, set in an eye-tracking enabled VR lift scenario, that varied in facial animation (static or animated) and expression (neutral or positive). Both facial animation (group difference = 102.328 [51.783, 152.872], p < 0.001, ηp2= 0.125) and positive expressions (group difference = 53.016 [0.054, 105.979], p = 0.049, ηp2= 0.033) led to less triggering of paranoid thoughts about the virtual humans. Facial animation (group difference = 2.442 [− 4.161, − 0.724], p = 0.006, ηp2= 0.063) but not positive expressions (group difference = 0.344 [− 1.429, 2.110], p = 0.681, ηp2= 0.001) significantly increased the likelihood of neutral thoughts about the characters. Our study shows that the detailed programming of virtual humans can impact the occurrence of paranoid thoughts in VR. The programming of virtual humans needs careful consideration depending on the purpose of their use