Attitudes toward signing human avatars vary depending on hearing status, age of signed language exposure, and avatar type

The use of virtual humans (i.e., avatars) holds the potential for interactive, automated interaction in domains such as remote communication, customer service, or public announcements. For signed language users, signing avatars could potentially provide accessible content by sharing information in the signer’s preferred or native language. As development of signing avatars has gained traction in recent years, many different methods of creating signing avatars have been developed, and the resulting avatars vary widely in their appearance, the naturalness of their movements, and their facial expressions--all of which may potentially impact users’ acceptance of the avatars. We designed a study to test the effects of these intrinsic properties of different signing avatars, while also examining the extent to which people’s own language experiences change their responses to signing avatars. We created video stimuli showing individual signs produced by 1) a live human signer (Human), 2) an avatar made using computer-synthesized animation (CS Avatar), and 3) an avatar made using high-fidelity motion capture (Mocap avatar). We surveyed 191 American Sign Language users, including Deaf (N = 83), Hard-of-Hearing (N = 34), and Hearing (N= 67) groups. Participants rated the three signers on multiple dimensions which were then combined to form ratings of Attitudes, Impressions, Comprehension, and Naturalness. Analyses demonstrated that the Mocap avatar was rated significantly more positively than the CS avatar on all primary variables. Correlations revealed that signers who acquire sign language later in life are more accepting of, and likely to have positive impressions of signing avatars. Finally, those who learned ASL earlier were more likely to give lower, more negative ratings to the CS avatar, but this association was not seen for the Mocap avatar or the Human signer. Together, these findings suggest that movement quality and appearance significantly impact users’ ratings of signing avatars, and show that signed language users with earlier age of ASL exposure are the most sensitive to movement quality issues seen in computer-generated avatars. We suggest that future efforts to develop signing avatars be considerate of retaining the fluid movement qualities which are integral to signed languages.

Judging a Book by Its Cover: Assessing the Comprehensibility and Perceived Appearance of Sign Language Avatars

The use of avatars is gaining popularity in today’s digitalized world. These computer-animated agents not only act as virtual shopping assistants to compensate for the impersonal feel of an online store, but are also frequently employed in gaming and social networking, and have recently served as animated characters for translation in the deaf community. New technological developments (sign language avatars) offer significant advantages for deaf users in daily interactions. This article explores how attitudes towards avatars, and subsequent satisfaction with the design company involved, can be increased through various measures. This experimental study manipulates the physical traits of signing avatars (gender, hairstyle, and dress) and analyses the outcomes in terms of their perceived properties, appearance, and comprehensibility, as well as more direct indicators of success (attitudes towards these avatars and satisfaction with the company). An industry partner cooperated in the empirical study to ensure the external validity of the findings.

Digital Television Flexibility: A Survey of Australians with Disability

Flexibility for many viewers comes from digital technologies and their interaction with television broadcasting. Significantly, as television is switched to digital transmissions, viewers with disability have the potential to experience flexibility in the form of accessibility features such as audio descriptions, captions, lip-reading avatars, signing avatars, spoken subtitles and clean audio. This flexibility may in fact provide some people with access to television for the first time. This exploratory study reports results from an online survey of Australians with disabilities conducted during the final months of the simulcast period before analogue signals were switched off in 2013. While captioning emerged as the most desired accessibility feature, differences surfaced when the data were broken into specific impairment types. This article highlights the importance of digital flexibility specific to impairment type, and locates people with disability as a significant group to consider as more changes take place around digital television broadcasting via the NBN.