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Unpleasantness of animated characters corresponds to increased viewer attention to faces

Published: 22 August 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Animated characters are frequently used in television programs, movies, and video games, but relatively little is known about how their characteristics affect attention and viewer opinions. We used eyetracking and questionnaires to examine the role of visual complexity and animation style on viewing patterns and ratings of video-recorded and animated movie clips. We created videos of an actress performing and describing a series of actions with blocks. Of the videos, one set included regular HD recordings of the actress. The remaining video sets were animated using motion capture data from that actress for three characters: realistic, cartoon, and robot. Increased facial looking time correlated with unpleasantness ratings for individual characters and clips, determining that animation styles have an effect on both viewing patterns and audience members' subjective opinions of characters. In addition, the method described in this paper can expand future research on character animation.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SAP '13: Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception
    August 2013
    150 pages
    ISBN:9781450322621
    DOI:10.1145/2492494
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    Published: 22 August 2013

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    Author Tags

    1. eye tracking
    2. facial animation
    3. perception

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    SAP' 13: ACM Symposium on Applied Perception 2013
    August 22 - 23, 2013
    Dublin, Ireland

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    SAP '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 22 of 54 submissions, 41%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 43 of 94 submissions, 46%

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    Cited By

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    • (2024)Towards mitigating uncann(eye)ness in face swaps via gaze-centric loss termsComputers and Graphics10.1016/j.cag.2024.103888119:COnline publication date: 1-Apr-2024
    • (2023)How do people respond to computer-generated versus human faces? A systematic review and meta-analysesComputers in Human Behavior Reports10.1016/j.chbr.2023.10028310(100283)Online publication date: May-2023
    • (2021)Creepy, but Persuasive: In a Virtual Consultation, Physician Bedside Manner, Rather than the Uncanny Valley, Predicts AdherenceFrontiers in Virtual Reality10.3389/frvir.2021.7390382Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021
    • (2021)AppearanceThe Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents10.1145/3477322.3477327(105-146)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2021
    • (2020)Empirical evaluation and pathway modeling of visual attention to virtual humans in an appearance fidelity continuumJournal on Multimodal User Interfaces10.1007/s12193-020-00341-z15:2(109-119)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2020
    • (2019)Virtual Faces Evoke Only a Weak Uncanny Valley Effect: An Empirical Investigation With Controlled Virtual Face ImagesPerception10.1177/030100661986913448:10(968-991)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2019
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    • (2019)Is Photorealism Important for Perception of Expressive Virtual Humans in Virtual Reality?ACM Transactions on Applied Perception10.1145/334960916:3(1-19)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2019
    • (2019)Empirical Evaluation of the Interplay of Emotion and Visual Attention in Human-Virtual Human InteractionACM Symposium on Applied Perception 201910.1145/3343036.3343118(1-9)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2019
    • (2019)Effects of a Virtual Human Appearance Fidelity Continuum on Visual Attention in Virtual RealityProceedings of the 19th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3308532.3329461(141-147)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2019
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