Abstract
The paper reports a study that aimed to determine whether character’s visual style has an effect on how signing avatars are perceived by viewers. The stimuli of the study were two polygonal characters that presented two different visual styles: stylized and realistic. Each character signed four sentences. Forty-seven participants with experience in American Sign Language (ASL) viewed the animated signing clips in random order via web survey. They (1) identified the signed sentences (if recognizable), (2) rated their legibility, and (3) rated the appeal of the signing avatar. Findings show that while character’s visual style does not have an effect on subjects’ perceived legibility of the signs and sign recognition, it has an effect on their interest in the character. The stylized signing avatar was perceived as more appealing than the realistic one.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
SignWriting (2015). http://www.signwriting.org/
Adamo-Villani, N., Wilbur, R.: Software for math and science education for the deaf. Disabil. Rehabil. Assistive Technol. 5(2), 115–124 (2010)
Whitney, S.: Adventure games as teaching tools for deaf and hard of hearing students. In: Journal of Border Education Research (2007)
Vesel, J.: Signing science. Learn. Lead. Technol. 32(8), 30–31 (2005)
Vcom3D (2007). http://www.vcom3d.com
eSIGN (2003). http://www.visicast.cmp.uea.ac.uk/eSIGN/index.html
Adamo-Villani, N., Wilbur, R., Eccarius, P., Abe-Harris, L.: Effects of character geometric model on the perception of sign language animation. In: IEEE Proceedings of IV 2009, pp. 72–75. Barcelona (2009)
TERC (2006). https://www.terc.edu/display/Products/Signing+Math+and+Science
Adamo-Villani, N., Wilbur, R.: Two novel technologies for accessible math and science education. IEEE Multimedia 15(4), 38–46 (2008)
Zhao, L., Kipper, K., Schuler, W., Vogler, C., Badler, N.I., Palmer, M.: A machine translation system from english to american sign language. In: White, J.S. (ed.) AMTA 2000. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1934, pp. 54–67. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)
Grieve-Smith, A.: SignSynth: a sign language synthesis application using Web3D and perl. In: Wachsmuth, I., Sowa, T. (eds.) Gesture and Sign Language in Human-Computer Interaction, 2298. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 134–145. Springer, Berlin (2002)
Huenerfauth, M.: A multi-path architecture for machine translation of english text into american sign language animation. In: Student Workshop at the Human Language Technology Conference/North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (HLTNAACL) (2004)
Huenerfauth, M.: Cyclic data-driven research on american sign language animation. In: Proceedings of SLTAT 2011, University of Dundee, UK (2011)
Bancroft, T.: Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels. Watson-Guptill, New York (2006)
Cissell, K.: A study of the effects of computer animated character body style on perception of facial expression. MS thesis (2014). http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=cgttheses
Welch, R., Blackmon, T., Liu, A., Mellers, B., Stark, L.: The effects of pictorial realism, delay of visual feedback, and observer interactivity on the subjective sense of presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environ. 5(3), 263–273 (1996)
Nass, C., Isbister, K., Lee, E.J.: Truth is beauty - researching embodied conversational agents. In: Cassell, J., Sullivan, J., Prevost, S., Churchill, E. (eds.) Embodied Conversational Agents, pp. 374–402. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
McCloud, S.: Understanding Comics. HarperPerennial, New York (1993)
Ekman, P., Rosenberg, E.L.: What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Oxford University Press, Oxford (1997)
Mori, M., MacDorman, K.F., Kageki, N.: The Uncanny Valley. IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag. 19(2), 98–100 (2012)
Film.com (2015). http://www.Film.com/
Cracked.com (2007). http://www.cracked.com/
Kids.nationalgeographic.com (2010). http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/science/ten-freaky-forces-of-nature/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Adamo-Villani, N., Lestina, J., Anasingaraju, S. (2016). Does Character’s Visual Style Affect Viewer’s Perception of Signing Avatars?. In: Vincenti, G., Bucciero, A., Vaz de Carvalho, C. (eds) E-Learning, E-Education, and Online Training. eLEOT 2015. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 160. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28883-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28883-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28882-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28883-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)