TY - GEN
T1 - Investigating how speech and animation realism influence the perceived personality of virtual characters and agents
AU - Thomas, Sean
AU - Ferstl, Ylva
AU - McDonnell, Rachel
AU - Ennis, Cathy
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - The portrayed personality of virtual characters and agents is understood to influence how we perceive and engage with digital applications. Understanding how the features of speech and animation drive portrayed personality allows us to intentionally design characters to be more personalized and engaging. In this study, we use performance capture data of unscripted conversations from a variety of actors to explore the perceptual outcomes associated with the modalities of speech and motion. Specifically, we contrast full performance-driven characters to those portrayed by generated gestures and synthesized speech, analysing how the features of each influence portrayed personality according to the Big Five personality traits. We find that processing speech and motion can have mixed effects on such traits, with our results highlighting motion as the dominant modality for portraying extraversion and speech as dominant for communicating agreeableness and emotional stability. Our results can support the Extended Reality (XR) community in development of virtual characters, social agents and 3D User Interface (3DUI) agents portraying a range of targeted personalities.
AB - The portrayed personality of virtual characters and agents is understood to influence how we perceive and engage with digital applications. Understanding how the features of speech and animation drive portrayed personality allows us to intentionally design characters to be more personalized and engaging. In this study, we use performance capture data of unscripted conversations from a variety of actors to explore the perceptual outcomes associated with the modalities of speech and motion. Specifically, we contrast full performance-driven characters to those portrayed by generated gestures and synthesized speech, analysing how the features of each influence portrayed personality according to the Big Five personality traits. We find that processing speech and motion can have mixed effects on such traits, with our results highlighting motion as the dominant modality for portraying extraversion and speech as dominant for communicating agreeableness and emotional stability. Our results can support the Extended Reality (XR) community in development of virtual characters, social agents and 3D User Interface (3DUI) agents portraying a range of targeted personalities.
KW - Embodied agents
KW - Perception and cognition
KW - virtual humans and (self-)avatars
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85129419139&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/VR51125.2022.00018
DO - 10.1109/VR51125.2022.00018
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85129419139
T3 - Proceedings - 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, VR 2022
SP - 11
EP - 20
BT - Proceedings - 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, VR 2022
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 29th IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, VR 2022
Y2 - 12 March 2022 through 16 March 2022
ER -