Influence of environmental context on affect recognition of stylized movements

Modifying the style of movements will be an important component of robotic interaction as more and more robots move into human-facing scenarios where humans are (consciously or unconsciously) constantly monitoring the motion profile of counterparts in order to make judgments about the state of these counterparts. This thesis includes two main contributions: (1) the development of two MATLAB tools that are designed to aid in the creation and simulation of stylized movement trajectories in varied contexts and (2) three user studies that explore the effects of environmental context on a human’s perception of stylized movement. First and foremost, the results from all of the user studies indicate that environmental contexts and stylized walking sequences both impact affect recognition. In the first two studies, participants were asked to categorize stimuli as one of seven affective labels. The results show that the labels were not applied consistently and so it was concluded that the affect of a multi-dimensional stimuli cannot be adequately categorized using a single affective label. In the third study the stimuli were evaluated on multiple scales and classified using ratings of valence and arousal rather than affective labels. The results were used to create a least squares model for the dataset that decomposed the affect ratings of animations to display the compound effects of stylized walking sequences and environmental contexts on affective ratings.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Heimerdinger, Madison Suzanne

Contributors dc:contributor

• LaViers Minnick, Amy

• Affect
• Gait
• Perception
• Human-robot interaction (HRI)

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Madison Heimerdinger

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99365

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/99365