Internal consistency predicts attractiveness in biological motion walkers

Klüver, Malte; Hecht, Heiko; Troje, Nikolaus F.

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.07.001

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Contrary to our initial idea, we found that only our agent's attractiveness-but not its eeriness-was subject to a clear consistency effect. Whereas the observed attractiveness result clearly concurs with previous studies from the field of evolutionary psychology (e.g., Klüver, Hecht, & Troje, 2015), the lacking connection between feature consistency and eeriness raises some conceptual questions, especially since it directly opposes the results of recent experiments (MacDorman & Chattopadhyay, 2016;Mitchell et al, 2011;Tinwell, Grimshaw, & Abdel Nabi, 2015). Even more so, examining the zero-order correlations between our variables, we come to the surprising conclusion that eeriness was actually positively related to facial and vocal realism indices, as well as perceived attractiveness.…”

supporting

confidence: 89%

“…Potential explanations for this phenomenon are numerous, especially if curious readers consult the decades' worth of consistency research that are offered by other areas of expertise. Evolutionary psychologists, for example, have provided striking evidence that stimulus consistency actually serves as a function of reproductive health and physical fitness (e.g., Klüver, Hecht, & Troje, 2015), while cognitive scientists connect the aversion against inconsistent entities to the undesirable neurological state of cognitive dissonance (e.g., Saygin et al, 2012). Again, further insight into the discussed effect is offered by uncanny valley researchers, whose work frequently indicates that digital entities with mismatching visual and auditory features tend to invite eeriness, fear, or disgust responses (e.g., MacDorman & Chattopadhyay, 2016;Mitchell et al, 2011;Tinwell, Grimshaw, & Abdel Nabi, 2015).…”

Section: The Role Of Agent Voice and Feature Consistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Uncanny…But Convincing? Inconsistency Between a Virtual Agent’s Facial Proportions and Vocal Realism Reduces Its Credibility and Attractiveness, but Not Its Persuasive Success

Stein

Ohler

2018

Interacting With Computers

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Embodied agents-i.e., digital systems represented by a virtual or robotic body-are used as persuasive tools in many different contexts. Still, psychological research indicates that for an agent to successfully influence its audience, many design factors have to work together to create a likable and trustworthy impression. Tapping into literature on the uncanny valley phenomenon, which has received only little attention in the field of persuasion research, we advance a consistency perspective that proposes matching levels of modality realism as a main requirement for users' acceptance. In an online experiment, we invite 107 participants to watch the persuasive speech of a virtual agent, manipulating both its facial proportions and vocal realism in a 22 between-subject design. Indeed, a mismatch between the realism of both features significantly reduces the agent's perceived credibility and attractiveness; yet, we observe that neither manipulation actually influences persuasive success in terms of attitude change. A potential explanation for this result pattern is offered by the Elaboration Likelihood Model, assuming that participants focused more on the agent's message than on peripheral cues to adjust their attitudes.

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supporting

confidence: 89%

Section: The Role Of Agent Voice and Feature Consistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncanny…But Convincing? Inconsistency Between a Virtual Agent’s Facial Proportions and Vocal Realism Reduces Its Credibility and Attractiveness, but Not Its Persuasive Success

Stein

Ohler

2018

Interacting With Computers

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“…Finally, in contrast to some other studies that had reported effects of inconsistencies between shape and motion [23,49], the actions that were presented in the current study were all transitive actions; that is, all of them involved the manipulation of an object. That allows for additional degrees of freedom in the way the situation can be interpreted.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

“…It was also shown that naturalness ratings of point-light walkers presented at a veridical, sped-up, or slowed-down playback speed betray the visual system's sensitivity to inconsistency: Observers rate the veridical playback speeds of point-light walkers as most natural [49]. In yet another experiment, Klüver et al [23] demonstrated that exchanging the shape and motion information between pairs of point-light walkers directly resulted in lower attractiveness for hybrid walkers compared to consistent walkers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual Effects of Inconsistency in Human Animations

Kenny

Mahmood

Honda

et al. 2019

ACM Trans. Appl. Percept.

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The individual shape of the human body, including the geometry of its articulated structure and the distribution of weight over that structure, influences the kinematics of a person's movements. How sensitive is the visual system to inconsistencies between shape and motion introduced by retargeting motion from one person onto the shape of another? We used optical motion capture to record five pairs of male performers with large differences in body weight, while they pushed, lifted, and threw objects. From these data, we estimated both the kinematics of the actions as well as the performer's individual body shape. To obtain consistent and inconsistent stimuli, we created animated avatars by combining the shape and motion estimates from either a single performer or from different performers. Using these stimuli we conducted three experiments in an immersive virtual reality environment. First, a group of participants detected which of two stimuli was inconsistent. Performance was very low, and results were only marginally significant. Next, a second group of participants rated perceived attractiveness, eeriness, and humanness of consistent and inconsistent stimuli, but these judgements of animation characteristics were not affected by consistency of the stimuli. Finally, a third group of participants rated properties of the objects rather than of the performers. Here, we found strong influences of shape-motion inconsistency on perceived weight and thrown distance of objects. This suggests that the visual system relies on its knowledge of shape and motion and that these components are assimilated into an altered perception of the action outcome. We propose that the visual system attempts to resist inconsistent interpretations of human animations. Actions involving object manipulations present an opportunity for the visual system to reinterpret the introduced inconsistencies as a change in the dynamics of an object rather than as an unexpected combination of body shape and body motion.

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“…The visual analysis of body shape has been emphasized in recent literature on attentional bias towards biological motion and joint action perception (Klüver, Hecht, & Troje, 2016;Meagher & Marsh, 2014). However, research on the association between stable body shape perception and self-generated movement has not progressed at the same rate as the former.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body image perception and sense of agency: notes from the alien hand experiment

Pinhatti

Castro

Gomes

2018

Psico

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Este artigo está licenciado sob forma de uma licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional, que permite uso irrestrito, distribuição e reprodução em qualquer meio, desde que a publicação original seja corretamente citada. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt_BR Artigo originAl ISSN 1980-8623 Percepción de imagem corporal y senso de agencia: notas del experimento de la mano alienígena Resumen La percepción de la imagen corporal comprende características representativas estables y dinámicas. Aquí examinamos si una medida estable de la imagen corporal (IC) correlaciona con el senso de agencia (SA) de movimientos corporales. Un total de 21 estudiantes universitarios (M=25,9, DP=9,29) completaron la versión brasileña de la Escala de Figuras de Siluetas (EFS) y participaran en el Experimento de la Mano Alienígena. Una matriz de correlación bayesiana reveló una probabilidad de correlación negativa sustancial entre IC y la confianza en SA, específicamente en las condiciones experimentales donde el SA fue manipulado. Con base en los escores de la EFS, los participantes se dividieron en grupos con y sin evidencias de distorsión de IC. Las comparaciónes de grupos evidenciaron una diferencia sustancial entre los grupos. Los análisis confirmaron una menor confianza en SA entre individuos con distorsión de IC mayor que ±3 kg/m².

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Internal consistency predicts attractiveness in biological motion walkers

Cited by 11 publications

References 41 publications

Uncanny…But Convincing? Inconsistency Between a Virtual Agent’s Facial Proportions and Vocal Realism Reduces Its Credibility and Attractiveness, but Not Its Persuasive Success

Uncanny…But Convincing? Inconsistency Between a Virtual Agent’s Facial Proportions and Vocal Realism Reduces Its Credibility and Attractiveness, but Not Its Persuasive Success

Perceptual Effects of Inconsistency in Human Animations

Body image perception and sense of agency: notes from the alien hand experiment

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