Feeling Blue or Seeing Red? Investigating the effect of light color, shadow and realism on the perception of emotion of real and virtual humans

摘要

Cinematic lighting is a powerful tool used in film-making to create a mood or atmosphere and to influence the audience’s perception and emotional response to a scene. For example, red can be used to increase feelings of anxiety or excitement, while blue might have a more calming effect. These responses can be harnessed to enhance the storytelling. Previous studies in Psychology have shown that light color has a direct impact on the perception of emotions and feelings. However, there is a lack of controlled empirical studies for understanding if lighting alone can alter the interpretation of emotion. Realistic virtual humans are an underused tool to study these effects in a controlled manner as they retain the same emotional expression across lighting conditions, and can display the same emotion across different genders and races. In this paper, we focus on studying the effect of light temperature, color, and shadow on the interpretation of emotions of realistic virtual humans, and compare to a human photo baseline. We are particularly interested in recognition of emotion, emotion intensity, and genuineness of the emotion. Our findings can be used by developers to increase the emotional intensity and genuineness of their virtual humans.