Perception of Complex Emotional Body Language of a Virtual Character

Virtual characters are a common phenomenon in serious game applications, and can enrich training environments for a range of different purposes. These characters can be used in games that have been developed to help people with learning difficulties. They can also be used to help users develop social skills, such as communication. For social interactions, much communicative information is contained in the body language between the parties involved. We know that humans are sensitive to emotions when they are conveyed on a virtual character and are capable of correctly identifying certain emotions. However, research on emotions and virtual characters tends to focus on a small number of emotions. We wish to create characters for a serious game who will convey a wide range of complex and subtle emotions. This paper presents a first investigation into the use of complex emotional body language for a virtual character. In two experiments, we examine participants’ perception of a range of motion-captured subtle emotions. Results from a pilot shows that participants are better able to recognise complex emotions with negative connotations rather than positive from a virtual character’s body motion. A second experiment aims to identify perceptual overlaps in these emotions, and results obtained motivate further investigation.