Perceptual enhancement of emotional mocap head motion: An experimental study

Yu Ding, Lei Shi, Zhigang Deng

Abstract: Motion capture (mocap) systems have been widely used to collect various human behavior data. Despite existing numerous research efforts on mocap motion processing and understanding, to the best of our knowledge, to date few works have been dedicated to the investigation into whether the mo-cap human behavior data can be further enhanced to improve its perception. In this work, we investigate whether and how it is feasible to consistently manipulate mocap emotional head motion to enhance its perceived expressiveness. Our study relies on a mocap audiovisual dataset acquired in a laboratory setting. Participants are invited to view the animation clips of a virtual talking character displaying the original mocap head motion or manipulated head motion, and then to rate their perceived expressiveness. Statistical analysis of the rated perceptions shows that humans are sensitive to the mean of head pitch rotation (called up-down rotation) in an utterance and that the expressiveness of emotion could be improved by adjusting the mean of head pitch rotation in an utterance.