A Preliminary Study: Examining the Contribution of Neck Angles of a Virtual Dog to Its Realness

Abstract

This study examined qualities of dog that allowed individuals to recognized virtual dog as a living dog. The contribution of shape and neck angles was focused as preliminary characteristics. To investigate the impact of change in the neck angles, two types of virtual dogs, one is dog-like and the other wolf-like, were developed and projected on a monitor with four kinds of neck angles (−45, 0, 45, and 90 degree). Twenty university students (female, n = 10; age range 19–23) participated in the experiments. Participants were asked following questions in random order: ‘do you think this is definitely dog?’ for virtual wolf-like dog, ‘do you think this is definitely wolf?’ for virtual dog-like dog. Participants filled out the evaluation sheet using 5-point scale after viewing each virtual dog. The experimental design was applied with the two levels of virtual dogs (dog-like and wolf-like), the four levels of neck angles, and 5 repetitions of each figure. As a result, it was found that the evaluation scores for two virtual dogs were significantly different (p < 0.05) and the neck angles were highly significant factor (p < 0.01). Also, the neck angle of 90 degree for virtual dog-like dog and the neck angle of 45 degree for virtual wolf-like dog were recognized as a dog the best. Those findings suggest that the neck angles would be one of the important factors to recognize a virtual dog to its realness.