Robot-aren itxura estetikoak eta erabiltzaileen preferentziak

Datozen urteetan roboten eta pertsonen arteko bizikidetza handitzea espero da, eta ondorioz, beraien arteko interakzioa optimizatzea beharrezkoa izango da. Robotaren itxura estetikoa bere gaitasunen inguruko informazioa jasotzeko modurik ulergarriena da. Robot askok, pertsonekin hobeto interaktuatzeko itxura humanoidea izaten dute, era honetan pertsonen enpatia handitu egiten baita. Hala ere, robot humanoide hauen artean, estetika aldetik bi tendentzia aurki ditzakegu: itxura teknologikoa izaten dutenak eta pertsona itxura erreala dutenak. Pertsonen preferentzia inplizitua zein den jakiteko helburuarekin Asoziazio Inplizituen Testa (IAT) burutu da. Test honek pertsonen preferentziak ezagutzea ahalbidetu du, bai inplizituki eta baita esplizituki ere. Neurketa inplizituaren emaitzan giza itxurarekiko preferentzia nabarmendu da, eta, neurketa esplizituan, aldiz, itxura teknologikoarekiko preferentzia. Emaitzetan lortu den kontraesan honek etorkizuneko ikerketarako ildo interesgarriak azaleratzen ditu.In coming years, the coexistence between robots and humans is expected to increase, and therefore, it will be necessary to optimize human-robot interaction. Robot aesthetics is the most understandable way to display information about a robot's capabilities. Many robots that are intended to interact with people often have humanoid aesthetics, because in this way, they increase people's empathy. However, there are two trends within humanoid aesthetics: those with technological aesthetics and those with real-person aesthetics. In order to find out people's implicit preference, an Implicit Association Test (IAT) has been carried out. This test enabled us to find out people's preferences, both implicitly and explicitly. The implicit measure had shown a preference for the real-person aesthetics, and, on the contrary, the explicit measure had shown a preference for the technological aesthetics. This contradiction in the results indicates an interesting future line for further research

Identification and Evaluation of the Face System of a Child Android Robot Affetto for Surface Motion Design

Faces of android robots are one of the most important interfaces to communicate with humans quickly and effectively, as they need to match the expressive capabilities of the human face, it is no wonder that they are complex mechanical systems containing inevitable non-linear and hysteresis elements derived from their non-rigid components. Identifying the input-output response properties of this complex system is necessary to design surface deformations accurately and precisely. However, to date, android faces have been used without careful system identification and thus remain black boxes. In this study, the static responses of three-dimensional displacements were investigated for 116 facial surface points against a discrete trapezoidal input provided to each actuator in the face of a child-type android robot Affetto. The results show that the response curves can be modeled with hysteretical sigmoid functions, and that the response properties of the face actuators, including sensitivity, hysteresis, and dyssynchrony, were quite different. The paper further proposes a design methodology for surface motion patterns based on the obtained response models. Design results thus obtained indicate that the proposed response properties enable us to predict the design results, and that the proposed design methodology can cancel the differences among the response curves of the actuators. The proposed identification and quantitative evaluation method can be applied to advanced android face studies instead of conventional qualitative evaluation methodologies

Analysis and Construction of Engaging Facial Forms and Expressions: Interdisciplinary Approaches from Art, Anatomy, Engineering, Cultural Studies, and Psychology

The topic of this dissertation is the anatomical, psychological, and cultural examination of a human face in order to effectively construct an anatomy-driven 3D virtual face customization and action model. In order to gain a broad perspective of all aspects of a face, theories and methodology from the fields of art, engineering, anatomy, psychology, and cultural studies have been analyzed and implemented. The computer generated facial customization and action model were designed based on the collected data. Using this customization system, culturally-specific attractive face in Korean popular culture, “kot-mi-nam (flower-like beautiful guy),” was modeled and analyzed as a case study. The “kot-mi-nam” phenomenon is overviewed in textual, visual, and contextual aspects, which reveals the gender- and sexuality-fluidity of its masculinity. The analysis and the actual development of the model organically co-construct each other requiring an interwoven process. Chapter 1 introduces anatomical studies of a human face, psychological theories of face recognition and an attractive face, and state-of-the-art face construction projects in the various fields. Chapter 2 and 3 present the Bezier curve-based 3D facial customization (BCFC) and Multi-layered Facial Action Model (MFAF) based on the analysis of human anatomy, to achieve a cost-effective yet realistic quality of facial animation without using 3D scanned data. In the experiments, results for the facial customization for gender, race, fat, and age showed that BCFC achieved enhanced performance of 25.20% compared to existing program Facegen , and 44.12% compared to Facial Studio. The experimental results also proved the realistic quality and effectiveness of MFAM compared with blend shape technique by enhancing 2.87% and 0.03% of facial area for happiness and anger expressions per second, respectively. In Chapter 4, according to the analysis based on BCFC, the 3D face of an average kot-mi-nam is close to gender neutral (male: 50.38%, female: 49.62%), and Caucasian (66.42-66.40%). Culturally-specific images can be misinterpreted in different cultures, due to their different languages, histories, and contexts. This research demonstrates that facial images can be affected by the cultural tastes of the makers and can also be interpreted differently by viewers in different cultures