Diversity in Virtual Humans: Unveiling Biases in Human Characteristics Representation
Resumo
Recent advancements in Computer Graphics (CG) have significantly enhanced the realism of animations and characters in various media. However, the Uncanny Valley (UV) theory suggests that as Virtual Humans (VHs) become more realistic, they may evoke discomfort. This phenomenon challenges industry professionals and researchers to study human perception, considering diverse characteristics such as gender and skin color. This work investigates human perception and sensations when playing or watching VHs, aiming to answer many questions regarding their visual characteristics. For example, one question examines human perception concerning the relationship between the character’s gender and the participant’s gender. The results showed in-group advantages for participants regarding VHs with binary genders, both in gender attribution and emotion recognition. Additionally, this work explores solutions for deconstructing the gender binary using a genderless Virtual Baby (VB) and an adult VH model. It also discusses the UV effect on VHs with different skin colors, highlighting potential biases in skin color algorithms.Referências
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J. Condry and S. Condry, “Sex differences: A study of the eye of the beholder,” Child Development, vol. 4, pp. 812–819, Sep 1976.
C. A. Seavey, P. A. Katz, and S. R. Zalk, “Baby x: The effect of gender labels on adult responses to infants,” Sex Roles, vol. 1, pp. 103–109, Jun 1975.
E. Zell, K. Zibrek, and R. McDonnell, “Perception of virtual characters,” in Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH, In the Courses Section. ACM, 2019, pp. 1–17.
M. Mori, K. F. MacDorman, and N. Kageki, “The uncanny valley [from the field],” IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 98–100, Jun 2012.
J. Kätsyri, K. Förger, M. Mäkäräinen, and T. Takala, “A review of empirical evidence on different uncanny valley hypotheses: support for perceptual mismatch as one road to the valley of eeriness,” Frontiers in psychology, vol. 6, p. 390, Apr 2015.
H. Tajfel and J. C. Turner, “The social identity theory of intergroup behavior,” in Political Psychology: Key Readings, P. Press, Ed. Psychology Press, 2004, ch. 16, pp. 276–293.
A. Tinwell, M. Grimshaw, and A. Williams, “The uncanny wall,” International Journal of Arts and Technology, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 326–341, 2011.
P. Nag and Ö. N. Yalçın, “Gender stereotypes in virtual agents,” in Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 2020, pp. 1–8.
K. Zibrek, L. Hoyet, K. Ruhland, and R. McDonnell, “Evaluating the effect of emotion on gender recognition in virtual humans,” in Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2013, pp. 45–49.
L. Abbruzzese, N. Magnani, I. H. Robertson, and M. Mancuso, “Age and gender differences in emotion recognition,” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, p. 2371, Oct 2019.
C. Draude, “Intermediaries: reflections on virtual humans, gender, and the uncanny valley,” AI & Society, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 319–327, Jan 2011.
C. Laue, “Familiar and strange: Gender, sex, and love in the uncanny valley,” Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 2, Jan 2017.
T. Kim, H. Rushmeier, J. Dorsey, D. Nowrouzezahrai, R. Syed, W. Jarosz, and A. Darke, “Countering racial bias in computer graphics research,” in Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH, In the Talks Section, 2022, pp. 1–2.
K. F. MacDorman and D. Chattopadhyay, “Reducing consistency in human realism increases the uncanny valley effect; increasing category uncertainty does not,” Cognition, vol. 146, pp. 190–205, Jan 2016.
D. Banakou, A. Beacco, S. Neyret, M. Blasco-Oliver, S. Seinfeld, and M. Slater, “Virtual body ownership and its consequences for implicit racial bias are dependent on social context,” Royal Society, vol. 7, no. 12, p. 201848, Dec 2020.
R. L. Bedder, D. Bush, D. Banakou, T. Peck, M. Slater, and N. Burgess, “A mechanistic account of bodily resonance and implicit bias,” Cognition, vol. 184, pp. 1–10, Mar 2019.
D. Obremski, O. B. Akuffo, L. Lücke, M. Semineth, S. Tomiczek, H.-F. Weichert, and B. Lugrin, “Reducing racial bias by interacting with virtual agents: An intervention in virtual reality,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2023, pp. 747–755.
K. Zibrek, L. Hoyet, K. Ruhland, and R. Mcdonnell, “Exploring the effect of motion type and emotions on the perception of gender in virtual humans,” ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP), vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 1–20, Jul 2015.
K. Zibrek, B. Niay, A.-H. Olivier, J. Pettré, L. Hoyet, and R. Mcdonnell, “Proximity in vr: The importance of character attractiveness and participant gender,” in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW). IEEE, 2022, pp. 672–673.
F. Durupinar and J. Kim, “Facial emotion recognition of virtual humans with different genders, races, and ages,” in Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 2022, pp. 1–10.
F. Zhao, R. E. Mayer, N. Adamo-Villani, C. Mousas, M. Choi, L. Lam, M. Mukanova, and K. Hauser, “Recognizing and relating to the race/ethnicity and gender of animated pedagogical agents,” Journal of Educational Computing Research, vol. 0, p. 07356331231213932, Nov 2023.
R. McDonnell, S. Jörg, J. K. Hodgins, F. Newell, and C. O’Sullivan, “Virtual shapers & movers: form and motion affect sex perception,” in Proceedings of the 4th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, 2007, pp. 7–10.
L. M. Flach, R. H. de Moura, S. R. Musse, V. Dill, M. S. Pinho, and C. Lykawka, “Evaluation of the uncanny valley in cg characters,” in Proceedings of the 11th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames), 2012, pp. 108–116.
V. Araujo, J. Melgare, B. Dalmoro, and S. R. Musse, “Is the perceived comfort with cg characters increasing with their novelty,” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 42, pp. 32–46, Sep 2021.
J. Condry and S. Condry, “Sex differences: A study of the eye of the beholder,” Child Development, vol. 4, pp. 812–819, Sep 1976.
C. A. Seavey, P. A. Katz, and S. R. Zalk, “Baby x: The effect of gender labels on adult responses to infants,” Sex Roles, vol. 1, pp. 103–109, Jun 1975.
Publicado
30/09/2024
Como Citar
ARAUJO, Victor Flávio de Andrade; PELACHAUD, Catherine; COSTA, Angelo B.; MUSSE, Soraia R..
Diversity in Virtual Humans: Unveiling Biases in Human Characteristics Representation. In: WORKSHOP DE TESES E DISSERTAÇÕES - CONFERENCE ON GRAPHICS, PATTERNS AND IMAGES (SIBGRAPI), 37. , 2024, Manaus/AM.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2024
.
p. 15-21.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sibgrapi.est.2024.31639.
