Cultural Differences in Using Facial Parts as Cues to Recognize Emotions in Avatars

Authors:
Tomoko Koda;Zsofia Ruttkay
Affiliations:
Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Osaka Institute of Technology, Hirakata City, Japan 573-0196;Human Media Interaction, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Venue:
IVA '09 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
Year:
2009

Citing 2
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Abstract

Avatars are frequently used in virtual worlds and online games to convey emotions across cultures. However, our previous study suggested there are cultural differences in recognizing avatar's facial expressions [1]. Yuki et al.'s study using emoticons and photorealistic human face images suggests Americans tend to interpret emotions based on the mouth, while Japanese tend to focus on the eyes [2]. Inspired by Yuki's study, this study uses cartoonish avatar faces to find cultural differences in using facial parts as cues to recognize avatar emotions. This paper reports the preliminary result of an experiment conducted between Japanese and European subjects.