Results 1 - 10
of
34
T.: Too real for comfort? uncanny responses to computer generated faces
- Computers in Human Behavior
"... As virtual humans approach photorealistic perfection, they risk making real humans uncomfortable. This intriguing phenomenon, known as the un-canny valley, is well known but not well understood. In an effort to demys-tify the causes of the uncanny valley, this paper proposes several perceptual, cogn ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 34 (3 self)
- Add to MetaCart
(Show Context)
As virtual humans approach photorealistic perfection, they risk making real humans uncomfortable. This intriguing phenomenon, known as the un-canny valley, is well known but not well understood. In an effort to demys-tify the causes of the uncanny valley, this paper proposes several perceptual, cognitive, and social mechanisms that have already helped address riddles like empathy, mate selection, threat avoidance, cognitive dissonance, and psychological defenses. In the four studies described herein, a computer generated human character’s facial proportions, skin texture, and level of detail were varied to examine their effect on perceived eeriness, human like-ness, and attractiveness. In Study I, texture photorealism and polygon count increased human likeness. In Study II, texture photorealism heightened the accuracy of human judgments of ideal facial proportions. In Study III, atyp-ical facial proportions were shown to be more disturbing on photorealistic faces than on other faces. In Study IV, a mismatch in the size and texture of the eyes and face was especially prone to make a character eerie. These re-sults contest the depiction of the uncanny valley as a simple relation between comfort level and human likeness. This paper concludes by introducing a set of design principles for bridging the uncanny valley.
The thing that should not be: predictive coding and the uncanny valley in perceiving human and humanoid robot actions.
- Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci.
, 2011
"... Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) repetition suppression, we explored the selectivity of the human action perception system (APS), which consists of temporal, parietal and frontal areas, for the appearance and/or motion of the perceived agent. Participants watched body movements of ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 19 (4 self)
- Add to MetaCart
(Show Context)
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) repetition suppression, we explored the selectivity of the human action perception system (APS), which consists of temporal, parietal and frontal areas, for the appearance and/or motion of the perceived agent. Participants watched body movements of a human (biological appearance and movement), a robot (mechanical appearance and movement) or an android (biological appearance, mechanical movement). With the exception of extrastriate body area, which showed more suppression for human like appearance, the APS was not selective for appearance or motion per se. Instead, distinctive responses were found to the mismatch between appearance and motion: whereas suppression effects for the human and robot were similar to each other, they were stronger for the android, notably in bilateral anterior intraparietal sulcus, a key node in the APS. These results could reflect increased prediction error as the brain negotiates an agent that appears human, but does not move biologically, and help explain the uncanny valley phenomenon.
Render me real? Investigating the effect of render style on the perception of animated virtual humans
- ACM Transactions on Graphics
"... Figure 1: Male avatar rendered in different visual styles, ranging from realistic to abstract, based on the results in Section 5. The realistic depiction of lifelike virtual humans has been the goal of many movie makers in the last decade. Recently, films such as Tron: Legacy and The Curious Case of ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 11 (0 self)
- Add to MetaCart
Figure 1: Male avatar rendered in different visual styles, ranging from realistic to abstract, based on the results in Section 5. The realistic depiction of lifelike virtual humans has been the goal of many movie makers in the last decade. Recently, films such as Tron: Legacy and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button have produced highly realistic characters. In the real-time domain, there is also a need to deliver realistic virtual characters, with the in-crease in popularity of interactive drama video games (such as L.A. NoireTM or Heavy RainTM). There have been mixed reactions from audiences to lifelike characters used in movies and games, with some saying that the increased realism highlights subtle imperfec-tions, which can be disturbing. Some developers opt for a styl-ized rendering (such as cartoon-shading) to avoid a negative reac-tion [Thompson 2004]. In this paper, we investigate some of the consequences of choosing realistic or stylized rendering in order to provide guidelines for developers for creating appealing virtual characters. We conducted a series of psychophysical experiments to determine whether render style affects how virtual humans are perceived. Motion capture with synchronized eye-tracked data was used throughout to animate custom-made virtual model replicas of the captured actors.
Effect of Character Animacy and Preparatory Motion on Perceptual Magnitude of Errors in Ballistic Motion
"... An increasing number of projects have examined the perceptual magnitude of visible artifacts in animated motion. These studies have been performed using a mix of character types, from detailed human models to abstract geometric objects such as spheres. We explore the extent to which character morpho ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 6 (1 self)
- Add to MetaCart
(Show Context)
An increasing number of projects have examined the perceptual magnitude of visible artifacts in animated motion. These studies have been performed using a mix of character types, from detailed human models to abstract geometric objects such as spheres. We explore the extent to which character morphology influences user sensitivity to errors in a fixed set of ballistic motions replicated on three different character types. We find user sensitivity responds to changes in error type or magnitude in a similar manner regardless of character type, but that users display a higher sensitivity to some types of errors when these errors are displayed on more human-like characters. Further investigation of those error types suggests that being able to observe a period of preparatory motion before the onset of ballistic motion may be important. However, we found no evidence to suggest that a mismatch between the preparatory phase and the resulting ballistic motion was responsible for the higher sensitivity to errors that was observed for the most humanlike character. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS):
Exploring robust, intuitive and emergent physical human-robot interaction with the humanoid robot
"... Abstract—We present how a humanoid robot, called Acroban, allows whole-body robust, natural and intuitive physical interaction with both adults and children. These physical human-robot interaction are made possible through the combination of several properties of Acroban: 1) it is whole-body complia ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 6 (3 self)
- Add to MetaCart
(Show Context)
Abstract—We present how a humanoid robot, called Acroban, allows whole-body robust, natural and intuitive physical interaction with both adults and children. These physical human-robot interaction are made possible through the combination of several properties of Acroban: 1) it is whole-body compliant thanks to variable impedance control and also thanks to the use of elastics and springs; 2) it has a bio-inspired vertebral column allowing more flexibility in postural and equilibrium control; 3) it is lightweight; 4) it has simple low-level controllers that leverage the first three properties. Moreover, the capabilities for physical humanrobot interaction that we show are not using a model of the human, and in this sense are “model free”: 1) the capability of the robot to keep its equilibrium while being manipulated or pushed by humans is a result of the intrinsic capability of the whole body to absorb unpredicted external perturbations; 2) the capability of leading Acroban by the hand is an emergent human-robot interface made possible by the self-organizing properties of the body and its low-level controllers and was observed a posteriori only after the robot was conceived and without any initial plan to make this possible. Finally, an originality of Acroban is that is is made with relatively low-cost components which lack of precision is counterbalanced with the robustness due to global geometry and compliance. I.
Investigating the Role of Body Shape on the Perception of Emotion
"... In order to analyze the emotional content of motions portrayed by different characters, we created real and virtual replicas of an actor exhibiting six basic emotions: sadness, happiness, surprise, fear, anger, and disgust. In addition to the video of the real actor, his actions were applied to five ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 6 (2 self)
- Add to MetaCart
In order to analyze the emotional content of motions portrayed by different characters, we created real and virtual replicas of an actor exhibiting six basic emotions: sadness, happiness, surprise, fear, anger, and disgust. In addition to the video of the real actor, his actions were applied to five virtual body shapes: a low- and high-resolution virtual counterpart, a cartoon-like character, a wooden mannequin, and a zombie-like character (Figures 1 and 2). In a point light condition, we also tested whether the absence of a body affected the perceived emotion of the movements. Participants were asked to rate the actions based on a list of 41 more complex emotions. We found that the perception of emotional actions is highly robust and to the most part independent of the character’s body, so long as form is present. When motion alone is present, emotions were generally perceived as less intense than in the cases where form was present.
The Perception of Humans and Robots: Uncanny Hills in Parietal Cortex
"... We report on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of the perception of human and artificial agents. Participants viewed videos of familiar body movements enacted by the android Repliee Q2, the human after whom it was modeled, and the “skinned ” version of Q2 revealing its mechanical ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 3 (3 self)
- Add to MetaCart
(Show Context)
We report on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of the perception of human and artificial agents. Participants viewed videos of familiar body movements enacted by the android Repliee Q2, the human after whom it was modeled, and the “skinned ” version of Q2 revealing its mechanical parts. We used a neural adaptation (repetition suppression) analysis to reveal brain areas sensitive to body movements, and explored whether the identity of the perceived agents modulated these responses. We found significantly higher activity in a distributed network of brain areas for the android, most notably in anterior intraparietal cortex. The responses for the human and the robot with the mechanical appearance resembled each other. We interpret these results within the framework of predictive coding and suggest that the “uncanny valley ” phenomenon may have its roots in processing conflicts within the brain’s action perception system.
Methodologies for the User Evaluation of the Motion of Virtual Humans
- In Intelligent Virtual Agents, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5573, Lecture Notes in Computer Science
, 2009
"... All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 2 (2 self)
- Add to MetaCart
(Show Context)
All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
A. Bargteil and M. van de Panne (Editors) Perceptual evaluation of footskate cleanup
"... When animating virtual humans for real-time applications such as games and virtual reality, animation systems often have to edit motions in order to be responsive. In many cases, contacts between the feet and the ground are not (or cannot be) properly enforced, resulting in a disturbing artifact kno ..."
Abstract
- Add to MetaCart
When animating virtual humans for real-time applications such as games and virtual reality, animation systems often have to edit motions in order to be responsive. In many cases, contacts between the feet and the ground are not (or cannot be) properly enforced, resulting in a disturbing artifact know as footsliding or footskate. In this paper, we explore the perceptibility of this error and show that participants can perceive even very low levels of footsliding (<21mm in most conditions). We then explore the visual fidelity of animations where footskate has been cleaned up using two different methods. We found that corrected animations were always preferred to those with footsliding, irrespective of the extent of the correction required. We also determined that a simple approach of lengthening limbs was preferred to a more complex approach using IK fixes and trajectory smoothing.