Implications of the uncanny valley of avatars and virtual characters for human-computer interaction

Technological innovations made it possible to create more and more realistic figures. Such figures are often created according to human appearance and behavior allowing interaction with artificial systems in a natural and familiar way. In 1970, the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori observed, however, that robots and prostheses with a very - but not perfect - human-like appearance can elicit eerie, uncomfortable, and even repulsive feelings. While real people or stylized figures do not seem to evoke such negative feelings, human depictions with only minor imperfections fall into the "uncanny valley," as Mori put it. Today, further innovations in computer graphics led virtual characters into the uncanny valley. Thus, they have been subject of a number of disciplines. For research, virtual characters created by computer graphics are particularly interesting as they are easy to manipulate and, thus, can significantly contribute to a better understanding of the uncanny valley and human perception. For designers and developers of virtual characters such as in animated movies or games, it is important to understand how the appearance and human-likeness or virtual realism influence the experience and interaction of the user and how they can create believable and acceptable avatars and virtual characters despite the uncanny valley. This work investigates these aspects and is the next step in the exploration of the uncanny valley. This dissertation presents the results of nine studies examining the effects of the uncanny valley on human perception, how it affects interaction with computing systems, which cognitive processes are involved, and which causes may be responsible for the phenomenon. Furthermore, we examine not only methods for avoiding uncanny or unpleasant effects but also the preferred characteristics of virtual faces. We bring the uncanny valley into context with related phenomena causing similar effects. By exploring the eeriness of virtual animals, we found evidence that the uncanny valley is not only related to the dimension of human-likeness, which significantly change our view on the phenomenon. Furthermore, using advanced hand tracking and virtual reality technologies, we discovered that avatar realism is connected to other factors, which are related to the uncanny valley and depend on avatar realism. Affinity with the virtual ego and the feeling of presence in the virtual world were also affected by gender and deviating body structures such as a reduced number of fingers. Considering the performance while typing on keyboards in virtual reality, we also found that the perception of the own avatar depends on the user's individual task proficiencies. This thesis concludes with implications that not only extends existing knowledge about virtual characters, avatars and the uncanny valley but also provide new design guidelines for human-computer interaction and virtual reality

Pedestrian Detection with Wearable Cameras for the Blind: A Two-way Perspective

Blind people have limited access to information about their surroundings, which is important for ensuring one's safety, managing social interactions, and identifying approaching pedestrians. With advances in computer vision, wearable cameras can provide equitable access to such information. However, the always-on nature of these assistive technologies poses privacy concerns for parties that may get recorded. We explore this tension from both perspectives, those of sighted passersby and blind users, taking into account camera visibility, in-person versus remote experience, and extracted visual information. We conduct two studies: an online survey with MTurkers (N=206) and an in-person experience study between pairs of blind (N=10) and sighted (N=40) participants, where blind participants wear a working prototype for pedestrian detection and pass by sighted participants. Our results suggest that both of the perspectives of users and bystanders and the several factors mentioned above need to be carefully considered to mitigate potential social tensions.Comment: The 2020 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2020

Increasing Player Performance and Game Experience in High Latency Systems

Cloud gaming services and remote play offer a wide range of advantages but can inherent a considerable delay between input and action also known as latency. Previous work indicates that deep learning algorithms such as artificial neural networks (ANN) are able to compensate for latency. As high latency in video games significantly reduces player performance and game experience, this work investigates if latency can be compensated using ANNs within a live first-person action game. We developed a 3D video game and coupled it with the prediction of an ANN. We trained our network on data of 24 participants who played the game in a first study. We evaluated our system in a second user study with 96 participants. To simulate latency in cloud game streaming services, we added 180 ms latency to the game by buffering user inputs. In the study we predicted latency values of 60 ms, 120 ms and 180 ms. Our results show that players achieve significantly higher scores, substantially more hits per shot and associate the game significantly stronger with a positive affect when supported by our ANN. This work illustrates that high latency systems, such as game streaming services, benefit from utilizing a predictive system

Reading in VR: The Effect of Text Presentation Type and Location

Reading is a fundamental activity to obtain information both in the real and the digital world. Virtual reality (VR) allows novel approaches for users to view, read, and interact with a text. However, for efficient reading, it is necessary to understand how a text should be displayed in VR without impairing the VR experience. Therefore, we conducted a study with 18 participants to investigate text presentation type and location in VR. We compared world-fixed, edge-fixed, and head-fixed text locations. Texts were displayed using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) or as a paragraph. We found that RSVP is a promising presentation type for reading short texts displayed in edge-fixed or head-fixed location in VR. The paragraph presentation type using world-fixed or edge-fixed location is promising for reading long text if movement in the virtual environment is not required. Insights from our study inform the design of reading interfaces for VR applications

Angry facial expressions bias towards aversive actions

Social interaction requires fast and efficient processing of another person’s intentions. In face-to-face interactions, aversive or appetitive actions typically co-occur with emotional expressions, allowing an observer to anticipate action intentions. In the present study, we investigated the influence of facial emotions on the processing of action intentions. Thirty-two participants were presented with video clips showing virtual agents displaying a facial emotion (angry vs. happy) while performing an action (punch vs. fist-bump) directed towards the observer. During each trial, video clips stopped at varying durations of the unfolding action, and participants had to recognize the presented action. Naturally, participants’ recognition accuracy improved with increasing duration of the unfolding actions. Interestingly, while facial emotions did not influence accuracy, there was a significant influence on participants’ action judgements. Participants were more likely to judge a presented action as a punch when agents showed an angry compared to a happy facial emotion. This effect was more pronounced in short video clips, showing only the beginning of an unfolding action, than in long video clips, showing near-complete actions. These results suggest that facial emotions influence anticipatory processing of action intentions allowing for fast and adaptive responses in social interactions

Uncanny avoiding in virtual valley the character design

AlternativeReviewe

FaceMaker—A Procedural Face Generator to Foster Character Design Research

Unknow

The Extent of the Proteus Effect as a Behavioral Measure for Assessing User Experience in Virtual Reality

Assessing the user experience (UX) while being immersed in a virtual environment (VE) is crucial to obtain insights about the quality and vividness of the experience created by virtual reality (VR) systems. These valuable insights are necessary to understand a user's response to VEs and, therefore, to advance in VR research. However, a standardized and effective measure for assessing UX is still missing. Consequently, this lack of suitable measures hinders researchers to gain knowledge and understanding about the effects of VEs on users and in turn slows down the progress in VR technology. To tackle this problem, we propose a behavioral measure for assessing UX based on a phenomenon known as the Proteus effect, which describes changes in behavior and attitude due to the embodiment of avatars with stereotypical characteristics. As avatars are a crucial part of an immersive experience, the extent of behavioral changes caused by the embodiment of avatars may pose an opportunity to implicitly quantify the UX of a VE. This paper discusses an alternative behavioral measure and contributes to the debate about suitable methods for assessing UX in VR systems

Don't Break my Flow: Effects of Switching Latency in Shooting Video Games

Latency is inherently part of every interactive computing system and particularly important for video games. Previous work shows that constant latency above 25 ms reduces game experience and player performance. However, latency in the wild varies and is never constant due to multiple factors, such as updates in routing tables, users changing their location, or the system's workload. It is unclear if switching latency impairs the gaming experience stronger than a constant high latency. To elucidate, we conducted an experiment with 264 participants playing a shooting video game induced with 0 ms, 33 ms, and 66 ms controlled latency. While playing, the game switched between different latency levels based on three frequencies. Our analysis shows that switching latency significantly impaired the participants' flow. Additionally, we found effects on the perceived tension, the experienced challenge, and the players' performance. We conclude that games should prioritize constant latency, even if that entails artificially adding latency

Development Method for Enabling the Utilisation of a Sensory Function in a Central Component Based on Its Physical Properties

In the context of condition monitoring and predictive maintenance, collecting accurate data from technical systems is an important corner stone of the advancing digitalization. For gathering precise data of the current state of a system, measurements from within the process can be utilised. To measure in process without disrupting the system is a challenge that can be tackled by using the physical properties of the components of the system. In this paper a method to systematically find such possible sensory utilizable components (SuC), based on their inherent physical effects is presented