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Eloquence of eyes and mouth of virtual agents: cultural study of facial expression perception

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Abstract

This paper reports the results of a cross-cultural study on facial regions as cues to recognize facial expressions of virtual agents. The experiment was conducted between Japan and Hungary using 30 facial expressions of cartoonish faces designed by Hungarians. The results suggest the following: (1) cultural differences exist when using facial regions as cues to recognize cartoonish facial expressions between Hungary and Japan. Japanese weighed facial cues more heavily in the eye region than Hungarians, who weighed facial cues more heavily in the mouth region than Japanese. (2) The mouth region is more effective for conveying the emotions of facial expressions than the eye region, regardless of country. Our findings can be used not only to derive design guidelines for virtual agent facial expressions when aiming at users of a single culture, but as adaptation strategies in applications with users from various cultures.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 20500196 (2008–2010) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. CharToon was developed by Zsofia Ruttkay and Han Noot.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Science and Technology, Osaka Institute of Technology, 1-79-1 Kitayama, Hirakata, Osaka, 573-0196, Japan

    Tomoko Koda

  2. Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Zugligeti ut 9-25, Budapest, Hungary

    Zsofia Ruttkay

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  1. Tomoko Koda
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  2. Zsofia Ruttkay
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Correspondence to Tomoko Koda.

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Koda, T., Ruttkay, Z. Eloquence of eyes and mouth of virtual agents: cultural study of facial expression perception. AI & Soc 32, 17–24 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-014-0571-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-014-0571-6

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