MURAL - Maynooth University Research Archive Library



    Reality Check: How Avatar and Face Representation Affect the Perceptual Evaluation of Synthesized Gestures


    Du, Haoyang, Xu, Yinghan, Dingliana, John, Keegan, Brian, McDonnell, Rachel and Ennis, Cathy (2026) Reality Check: How Avatar and Face Representation Affect the Perceptual Evaluation of Synthesized Gestures. SIGGRAPH Conference Papers. pp. 1-10.

    Abstract

    The capacity to create realistic virtual humans has progressed significantly, and such characters can be found in many applications across entertainment, education and health. As an essential element of interactive virtual humans, speech-driven 3D gesture generation still depends heavily on perceptual evaluation, yet studies often vary avatar appearance and facial presentation when judging the generated motions. Prior work suggests these visual choices can bias motion judgments, but controlled evidence remains limited. We address this gap with controlled evaluations of co-speech gestures across motion sources, spanning seven representative avatar renderings used in contemporary research and application pipelines. Our results show that avatar and face presentation systematically shift perceptual judgments, and we provide recommendations for benchmarking gesture synthesis as well as for deploying virtual humans in human-facing applications.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Computing methodologies; Animation; Human centered computing; Empirical studies in HCI; reality check; avatar; face representation; Perceptual Evaluation; Synthesized Gestures;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science & Engineering > Computer Science
    Faculty of Science & Engineering > Research Institutes > Hamilton Institute
    Item ID: 22020
    Identification Number: 10.1145/3799902.3811161
    Depositing User: IR Editor
    Date Deposited: 07 Nov 2026 12:18
    Journal or Publication Title: SIGGRAPH Conference Papers
    Publisher: ACM Digital Library
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    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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