A Model of Interpersonal Attitude and Posture Generation

Abstract

Abstract. We present a model of interpersonal attitude used for generating expressive postures for computer animated characters. Our model consists of two principle dimensions, affiliation and status. It takes into account the relationships between the attitudes of two characters and allows for a large degree of variation between characters, both in how they react to other characters' behaviour and in the ways in which they express attitude.Human bodies are highly expressive, a casual observation of a group of people will reveal a large variety of postures. Some people stand straight, while others are slumped or hunched over; some people have very asymmetric postures; heads can be held at many different angles, and arms can adopt a huge variety of postures each with a different meaning: hands on hips or in pockets; arms crossed; scratching the head or neck, or fiddling with clothing. Computer animated character often lack this variety of expression and can seem stiff and robotic, however, posture has been relatively little studied in the field of expressive virtual characters. It is a useful cue as it is very clearly visible and can be displayed well on even fairly graphically simple characters. Posture is particularly associated with expressing relationships between people or their attitude to each other, for example a close posture displays a liking while drawing up to full height displays a dominant attitude. Attitude is also an area of expressive behaviour that has been less studied than say, emotion. As such we have chosen to base our model of gesture generation primarily on attitude rather than emotion or other factors.

The recognition of acted interpersonal stance in police interrogations and the influence of actor proficiency

“…Culture influences the stance people take towards others and the meaning of certain behaviours and expressions [3,21]. Endrass and André [19] integrated cultural factors into models of virtual characters.…”

“…Endrass and André [19] integrated cultural factors into models of virtual characters. Police interview studies Tilt head up, orient head toward other [11] Hand gesture Movements directed away [32], high gesture rate while talking [11], initiate hand shaking [11] Movements directed inward [32], object-adaptor, self-touch [37] Self-protection gestures [47], folding arms [21,37] Touch other [37], object-adaptors [37], initiate hand shaking [11] Posture Space filling and asymmetric postures [21,32], erected posture [11] Shrinking postures [21] Distant postures, barier postures [21] Physically close postures, close interaction or direct orientation [21,37] Leg movement Wide stance of the legs [32] Rhythmically moving legs [47] Facial expression Facial anger [18], self-assured expression [37], expressing face [37] Facial sadness [18,37] Facial disgust [18], facial anger [18,37] Smile [10,18,21,22] Gaze behavior More gaze [10,37], gaze for a long time [37] avert gaze [37] gaze for a long time [37] Mutual gaze [10,37] Focus of attention Pay attention to other …”

Social Puppets: Towards Modular Social Animation for Agents and Avatars

“…When moving into a dynamic 3D game environment, more behaviors and more complex patterns of interaction need to be considered, for example to deal with a larger numbers of participants and longer locomotion distances. Research into the generation of believable communicative behavior in multi-party settings is growing, but has for the most part focused on one or two kinds of behavior at a time such as posture or gaze [6], [15].…”

Animating Conversation in Online Games

“…While some interesting work is being done on posture generation as a function of attitudes between users [12], no work to date has attempted to support both the interactional and the propositional procceses of conversation through real-time analysis of communicative intent.…”