Laughter and smiling facial expression modelling for the generation of virtual affective behavior

Mascaró M. ; Serón Arbeloa, F.J. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Perales F.J. ; Varona J. ; Mas R.

Resumen: Laughter and smiling are significant facial expressions used in human to human communication. We present a computational model for the generation of facial expressions associated with laughter and smiling in order to facilitate the synthesis of such facial expressions in virtual characters. In addition, a new method to reproduce these types of laughter is proposed and validated using databases of generic and specific facial smile expressions. In particular, a proprietary database of laugh and smile expressions is also presented. This database lists the different types of classified and generated laughs presented in this work. The generated expressions are validated through a user study with 71 subjects, which concluded that the virtual character expressions built using the presented model are perceptually acceptable in quality and facial expression fidelity. Finally, for generalization purposes, an additional analysis shows that the results are independent of the type of virtual character’s appearance. © 2021 Mascaró et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251057

Año: 2021

Publicado en: PLoS ONE 16, 5 (2021), 251057 [16 pp]
ISSN: 1932-6203

Factor impacto JCR: 3.752 (2021)

Categ. JCR: MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES rank: 29 / 74 = 0.392 (2021) - Q2 - T2

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.852 - Multidisciplinary (Q1)

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Lenguajes y Sistemas Inf. (Dpto. Informát.Ingenie.Sistms.)