Eye-tracktive: Measuring Attention to Body Parts When Judging Human Emotions

Virtual humans are often endowed with human-like characteristics to make them more appealing and engaging. Motion capture is a reliable way to represent natural motion on such characters, thereby allowing a wide range of animations to be automatically created and replicated. However, interpersonal differences in actors’ performances can be subtle and complex, yet have a strong effect on the human observer. Such effects can be very difficult to express quantitatively or indeed even qualitatively. We investigate two subjective human motion characteristics: attractiveness and distinctiveness. We conduct a perceptual experiment, where participants’ eye movements are tracked while they rate the motions of a range of actors. We found that participants fixate mostly on the torso, regardless of gait and actor sex, and very little on the limbs. However, they self-reported that they used hands, elbows and feet in their judgments, indicating a holistic approach to the problem

The Uncanny Valley The Effect of Removing Blendshapes from Facial Animation

Ever since its introduction in 1970 by the roboticist Dr. Mori, the uncanny valley has become an integral part of facial animation. While most of the work on the uncanny valley is focused on finding a way to surpass the uncanny valley and how certain things could be designed to increase or decrease the uncanniness of an animation, this paper investigates how removing certain blendshapes from the facial animation changes our perception about the eeriness of that animation. The goal is to identify the “necessary” blendshapes which bring about a significant change the perceived uncanniness of the animation. For achieving this, participants undergo visual tests which entails observing short animated clips expressing different emotions and recording the human-likeness and uncanniness, as perceived by the observers. The results validate some of the existing theories about the uncanny valley and also identify the necessary blendshapes for every emotion. The results show that removing the blendshapes not only affects the eeriness but also the perceived human-likeness and may change our perception of the emotion expressed in the animation

Attention visual

This research presents an innovative approach to improving visual-spatial attention using a research tool based on the web. Recognizing the significant role visual-spatial attention plays in everyday life and cognitive function for humans, this research was undertaken with the aim of developing a user-friendly, accessible web-based tool called Attention Visual (attentionvisual.com) to enhance this crucial cognitive skill. This tool also facilitates data collection, potentially accelerating the pace and enhancing the quality of related research. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized for data collection and analysis. In order to stimulate improvements in visual-spatial attention, the tool’s algorithm was structured to adjust task difficulty according to the user’s performance; heightened performance would yield more challenging tasks, whereas lower performance would result in easier tasks, fostering an adaptive and progressive learning environment. The main hypothesis that underlies this research was that regular use of this tool could result in measurable enhancements in visual-spatial attention. This has potential benefits for various population groups, from athletes to individuals with certain cognitive conditions. The results of the research validate this hypothesis, demonstrating the effectiveness of the webbased tool in enhancing visual-spatial attention and indicating that the design elements of the tool have a positive impact on user performance. The research additionally highlighted a wide range of participant diversity, thanks to the online nature of the tool, enhancing the robustness and generalizability of the data collected. These findings contribute significantly to the fields of cognitive science, neuroplasticity, and digital tool development, offering valuable insights for future research. They demonstrate the effectiveness of web-based tools in cognitive science research and suggest potential avenues for future investigation, such as exploring other aspects of visual cognition or the application of such tools in practical settings like cognitive therapy and rehabilitation

Appealing avatars from 3D body scans: Perceptual effects of stylization

Advances in 3D scanning technology allow us to create realistic virtual avatars from full body 3D scan data. However, negative reactions to some realistic computer generated humans suggest that this approach might not always provide the most appealing results. Using styles derived from existing popular character designs, we present a novel automatic stylization technique for body shape and colour information based on a statistical 3D model of human bodies. We investigate whether such stylized body shapes result in increased perceived appeal with two different experiments: One focuses on body shape alone, the other investigates the additional role of surface colour and lighting. Our results consistently show that the most appealing avatar is a partially stylized one. Importantly, avatars with high stylization or no stylization at all were rated to have the least appeal. The inclusion of colour information and improvements to render quality had no significant effect on the overall perceived appeal of the avatars, and we observe that the body shape primarily drives the change in appeal ratings. For body scans with colour information, we found that a partially stylized avatar was most effective, increasing average appeal ratings by approximately 34%

FrankenFolk: Distinctiveness and attractiveness of voice and motion

It is common practice in movies and games to use different actors for the voice and body/face motion of a virtual character. What effect does the combination of these different modalities have on the perception of the viewer? In this article, we conduct a series of experiments to evaluate the distinctiveness and attractiveness of human motions (face and body) and voices. We also create combination characters called FrankenFolks, where we mix and match the voice, body motion, face motion, and avatar of different actors and ask which modality is most dominant when determining distinctiveness and attractiveness or whether the effects are cumulative

Look me in the eyes: A survey of eye and gaze animation for virtual agents and artificial systems

International audienceA person's emotions and state of mind are apparent in their face and eyes. As a Latin proverb states: "The face is the portrait of the mind; the eyes, its informers.". This presents a huge challenge for computer graphics researchers in the generation of artificial entities that aim to replicate the movement and appearance of the human eye, which is so important in human-human interactions. This State of the Art Report provides an overview of the efforts made on tackling this challenging task. As with many topics in Computer Graphics, a cross-disciplinary approach is required to fully understand the workings of the eye in the transmission of information to the user. We discuss the movement of the eyeballs, eyelids, and the head from a physiological perspective and how these movements can be modelled, rendered and animated in computer graphics applications. Further, we present recent research from psychology and sociology that seeks to understand higher level behaviours, such as attention and eye-gaze, during the expression of emotion or during conversation, and how they are synthesised in Computer Graphics and Robotics

Trade-Offs Between Responsiveness and Naturalness for Player Characters

Real-time animation controllers are fundamental for animating characters in response to player input. However, the design of such controllers requires making trade-offs between the naturalness of the character’s motions and the promptness of the character’s response. In this paper, we investigate the effects of such tradeoffs on the players’ enjoyment, control, satisfaction, and opinion of the character in a simple platform game. In our first experiment, we compare three controllers having the same responsiveness, but varying levels of naturalness. In the second experiment, we compare three controllers having increasing realism but at the expense of decreased responsiveness. Not surprisingly, our least responsive controller negatively affects players’ performance and perceived ability to control the character. However, we also find that players are most satisfied with their own performance using our least natural controller, in which the character moves around the environment in a static pose; that differences in animation can significantly alter players’ enjoyment with responsiveness being equal; and that players do not report increased motion quality with our most natural controller, despite viewers outside of a game context rating the same controller as significantly more natural than our other conditions

Sending an Avatar to Do a Human’s Job: Compliance with Authority Persists Despite the Uncanny Valley

Just as physical appearance affects social influence in human communication, it may also affect the processing of advice conveyed through avatars, computer-animated characters, and other human-like interfaces. Although the most persuasive computer interfaces are often the most human-like, they have been predicted to incur the greatest risk of falling into the uncanny valley, the loss of empathy attributed to characters that appear eerily human. Previous studies compared interfaces on the left side of the uncanny valley, namely, those with low human likeness. To examine interfaces with higher human realism, a between-groups factorial experiment was conducted through the internet with 426 midwestern U.S. undergraduates. This experiment presented a hypothetical ethical dilemma followed by the advice of an authority figure. The authority was manipulated in three ways: depiction (digitally recorded or computer animated), motion quality (smooth or jerky), and advice (disclose or refrain from disclosing sensitive information). Of these, only the advice changed opinion about the ethical dilemma, even though the animated depiction was significantly eerier than the human depiction. These results indicate that compliance with an authority persists even when using an uncannily realistic computer-animated double