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    Investigating how speech and animation realism influence the perceived personality of virtual characters and agents


    Thomas, Sean, Ferstl, Ylva, McDonnell, Rachel and Ennis, Cathy (2022) Investigating how speech and animation realism influence the perceived personality of virtual characters and agents. In: 2022 IEEE on Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), 2022, Christchurch, New Zealand.

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    Abstract

    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.
    Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
    Keywords: Embodied agents; virtual humans; Perception; cognition;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Computer Science
    Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > Hamilton Institute
    Item ID: 20456
    Identification Number: 10.1109/VR51125.2022.00018
    Depositing User: IR Editor
    Date Deposited: 12 Aug 2025 15:02
    Journal or Publication Title: 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)
    Publisher: IEEE
    Refereed: Yes
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/20456
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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