Uncanny Speech

Author(s):  
Angela Tinwell ◽  
Mark Grimshaw ◽  
Andrew Williams

With increasing sophistication of realism for human-like characters within computer games, this chapter investigates player perception of audio-visual speech for virtual characters in relation to the Uncanny Valley. Building on the findings from both empirical studies and a literature survey, a conceptual framework for the uncanny and speech is put forward which includes qualities of speech sound, lip-sync, human-likeness of voice, and facial expression. A cross-modal mismatch for the fidelity of speech with image can increase uncanniness and as much attention should be given to speech sound qualities as aesthetic visual qualities by game developers to control how uncanny a character is perceived to be.

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Himalaya Patel ◽  
Karl F. MacDorman

Just as physical appearance affects social influence in human communication, it may also affect the processing of advice conveyed through avatars, computer-animated characters, and other human-like interfaces. Although the most persuasive computer interfaces are often the most human-like, they have been predicted to incur the greatest risk of falling into the uncanny valley, the loss of empathy attributed to characters that appear eerily human. Previous studies compared interfaces on the left side of the uncanny valley, namely, those with low human likeness. To examine interfaces with higher human realism, a between-groups factorial experiment was conducted through the internet with 426 midwestern U.S. undergraduates. This experiment presented a hypothetical ethical dilemma followed by the advice of an authority figure. The authority was manipulated in three ways: depiction (digitally recorded or computer animated), motion quality (smooth or jerky), and advice (disclose or refrain from disclosing sensitive information). Of these, only the advice changed opinion about the ethical dilemma, even though the animated depiction was significantly eerier than the human depiction. These results indicate that compliance with an authority persists even when using an uncannily realistic computer-animated double.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jari Kätsyri ◽  
Beatrice de Gelder ◽  
Tapio Takala

The uncanny valley (UV) hypothesis suggests that increasingly human-like robots or virtual characters elicit more familiarity in their observers (positive affinity) with the exception of near-human characters that elicit strong feelings of eeriness (negative affinity). We studied this hypothesis in three experiments with carefully matched images of virtual faces varying from artificial to realistic. We investigated both painted and computer-generated (CG) faces to tap a broad range of human-likeness and to test whether CG faces would be particularly sensitive to the UV effect. Overall, we observed a linear relationship with a slight upward curvature between human-likeness and affinity. In other words, less realistic faces triggered greater eeriness in an accelerating manner. We also observed a weak UV effect for CG faces; however, least human-like faces elicited much more negative affinity in comparison. We conclude that although CG faces elicit a weak UV effect, this effect is not fully analogous to the original UV hypothesis. Instead, the subjective evaluation curve for face images resembles an uncanny slope more than a UV. Based on our results, we also argue that subjective affinity should be contrasted against subjective ratherthan objective measures of human-likeness when testing UV.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
O.V. Zaretskaya

The article discusses the dependence on online computer games as a kind of addic- tive behavior, analyzing different viewpoints of researchers. The author represents the results of empirical studies of personality and behavioral characteristics of players, which enable to detect statistically significant differences in characteristics such as locus of control (internality / externality) and coping behavior. In the group of players internality level was lower than in the control group, and the frequency of selection of coping strategy avoidance was higher. Moreover, the author found out the correla- tion between these parameters: the level of internality is negatively correlated with the frequency of selection of avoidance strategies. These data indicate that the one of the basic factors, which forms addictive behavior, in particular, addiction to com- puter online games, is the consciousness of the degree of responsibility for one’s live, of opportunities to influence its course. These results open new perspectives for further study of the problem of computer and Internet addiction. In addition to empirical data, obtained as a result of the author's research, the article analyses well-known theoreti- cal concepts and practical work in the field of Internet addiction, coping behavior and locus of control.


Author(s):  
Mifrah Ahmad ◽  
Lukman Ab Rahim ◽  
Kamisah Osman ◽  
Noreen Izza Arshad

Game-based learning (GBL) has dominantly become an emerging teaching industry in 21st century. To provide an effective development of educational games (EG) with assurance of effectiveness, modelling and design methods are highlighted. To model EG, game developers must understand existing elements' interaction and relationships. The elements of EG have been documented in literature; however, the relationships are not well documented. Hence, this research has established these relationships by conducting a literature survey and identifying the relationships between different elements. Consequently, they are validated by eight game-based learning experts via qualitative methods and the validation results are interpreted using the hermeneutics method of the interpretivism paradigm. In this chapter, the authors present the relationships that they found most crucial to validate since they have the least literature evidence. With the relationships identified and documented, game developers will have better understanding of the interaction between each element and can produce better models of EG.


Author(s):  
Mifrah Ahmad ◽  
Lukman Ab Rahim ◽  
Kamisah Osman ◽  
Noreen Izza Arshad

Game-based learning (GBL) has dominantly become an emerging teaching industry in 21st century. To provide an effective development of educational games (EG) with assurance of effectiveness; modelling and design methods are highlighted. To model EG, game developers must understand existing element's interaction and relationships. The elements of EG have been documented in many literature, however, the relationships are not well documented. Hence, this research has established these relationships by conducting a literature survey and identifying the relationships between different elements. Consequently, they are validated by eight game-based learning experts via qualitative methods and the validation results are interpreted using hermeneutics method of the interpretivism paradigm. In this chapter, we present the relationships that we found most crucial to validate since they have the least literature evidence. With the relationships identified and documented, game developers will have better understanding of the interaction between each elements and can produce better models of EG.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Cheetham ◽  
Ivana Pavlovic ◽  
Nicola Jordan ◽  
Pascal Suter ◽  
Lutz Jancke

Author(s):  
Bradford R. Eichhorn ◽  
Oya I. Tukel

In this study the authors provide a comprehensive literature survey of user involvement in information system projects. Specifically, the authors document and summarize user involvement by identifying studies that investigate user roles and activities, selection of users, type of communications used, and timing and level of their involvement. The authors review papers that employed various research methods and empirical studies whose models incorporated moderating and mediating factors, longitudinal studies, focus groups and case studies. The authors document the conditions favoring selected topics, models and metrics as well as highlight the contradicting results not supporting user involvement. This study constitutes an initial and systematic documentation of user involvement in information system projects and presents the opportunity to further improve the research in this subject area by leveraging findings and limitations of the current literature.


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