In the duration of the ForEVR project, three main objectives were addressed. First was the creation of EVR protocols and environments for the purposes of perceptual experimentation. Additionally, an existing EVR environment and protocol focusing on mental health topics, named the ConVRself, created by the Event Lab (University of Barcelona) and the secondment partner (Virtual Bodyworks) was considered.
The second objective was to explore the most appropriate techniques for manipulating recorded human biological motion. We focused on the OCEAN model personality traits (neuroticism, emotional stability), which can be identified from body and facial motion of people and could be associated with higher or lower levels of appeal. We then investigated three different approaches to creating the motion filter, which will change the existing motion towards a more appealing/less appealing style for virtual characters (Laban motion analysis descriptors, entropy in motion, and style transfer techniques using machine learning). The preliminary study, where we investigated the relationship between appearance and motion of virtual characters was also conducted as part of the second objective. We found that motion as well as appearance both separately contribute to the appeal of the character, giving an indication that appearance needs to be controlled when investigating the motion perception in our final experiment.
Lastly, we evaluated how the final character design affected the users’ perception and propose character design guidelines for improving the EVR experience. We created two characters, who exhibited different personality types through their motion movement patterns and displayed them in an immersive experiment where we instructed the participants to complete a choice task which included avoiding the two characters in a tight space (realistic metro scene). We were able to receive evidence of perceptual and behavioural changes of users in interaction with virtual agents with different movement patterns. The ‘neurotic’ motion pattern resulted in a larger distance and avoidance of the character, as well as choosing alternative exit doors when the neurotic type was obstructing one of the exits. We published our findings in the journal Computers & Graphics and IEEEVR 2022 proceedings.
