Paper Info
Title
Avatar culture: cross-cultural evaluations of avatar facial expressions
Abstract
Avatars are increasingly used to express our emotions in our online communications. Such avatars are used based on the assumption that avatar expressions are interpreted universally among all cultures. This paper investigated cross-cultural evaluations of avatar expressions designed by Japanese and Western designers. The goals of the study were: (1) to investigate cultural differences in avatar expression evaluation and apply findings from psychological studies of human facial expression recognition, (2) to identify expressions and design features that cause cultural differences in avatar facial expression interpretation. The results of our study confirmed that (1) there are cultural differences in interpreting avatars’ facial expressions, and the psychological theory that suggests physical proximity affects facial expression recognition accuracy is also applicable to avatar facial expressions, (2) positive expressions have wider cultural variance in interpretation than negative ones, (3) use of gestures and gesture marks may sometimes cause counter-effects in recognizing avatar facial expressions.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1007/s00146-009-0214-5
AI Soc.
Keywords
Field
DocType
avatar culture,wider cultural variance,avatar facial expression interpretation,positive expression,cross-cultural evaluation,avatar facial expression,facial expression,avatar expression evaluation,facial expression recognition accuracy,cultural difference,avatar expression,human facial expression recognition
Social psychology,Expression (mathematics),Facial expression recognition,Computer science,Gesture,Cognitive psychology,Cross-cultural,Knowledge management,Cultural diversity,Facial expression,Psychological Theory,Avatar
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
24
3
1435-5655
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
15
1.02
8
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Tomoko Koda17915.64
Ishida, Toru23021490.20
Matthias Rehm315721.98
Elisabeth André43634433.65