Animations have become increasingly realistic with the evolution of Computer
Graphics (CG). In particular, human models and behaviors were represented
through animated virtual humans, sometimes with a high level of realism. In
particular, gender is a characteristic that is related to human identification,
so that virtual humans assigned to a specific gender have, in general,
stereotyped representations through movements, clothes, hair and colors, in
order to be understood by users as desired by designers. An important area of
study is finding out whether participants' perceptions change depending on how
a virtual human is visually presented. Findings in this area can help the
industry to guide the modeling and animation of virtual humans to deliver the
expected impact to the audience. In this paper, we reproduce, through CG, a
perceptual study that aims to assess gender bias in relation to a simulated
baby. In the original study, two groups of people watched the same video of a
baby reacting to the same stimuli, but one group was told the baby was female
and the other group was told the same baby was male, producing different
perceptions. The results of our study with virtual babies were similar to the
findings with real babies. First, it shows that people's emotional response
change depending on the character gender attribute, in this case the only
difference was the baby's name. Our research indicates that by just informing
the name of a virtual human can be enough to create a gender perception that
impact the participant emotional answer.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 table