Abstract:  Abstract: In the early 1970s, Psychologists investigated biological motion perception by attaching point-lights to the joints of the human body, known as ‘point light walkers’. These early experiments showed biological motion perception to be an extreme example of sophisticated pattern analysis in the brain, capable of easily differentiating human motions with reduced motion cues. Further experiments showed that biological motion is rich in psychological information such as social categories, emotional state, intentions, and underlying dispositions. Nowadays, motion data from reduced cues is routinely tracked using motion capture systems or even VR headsets and controllers and applied to virtual avatars in immersive virtual environments. This data contains psychological information that could be extracted, stored or even shared. In this talk, I will discuss research that I have conducted over the years on the perception of full-body motion capture and the effect of applying it to different avatar morphologies – ranging from photorealistic virtual humans to flesh-eating zombies! I will also discuss the implications for avatar-based interactions in immersive virtual worlds, as technology develops, and motion capture data becomes more accessible to all.

Bio: Rachel McDonnell is an Associate Professor of Creative Technologies at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her research focuses on animation of virtual characters, using perception to both deepen our understanding of how virtual characters are perceived, and directly provide new algorithms and guidelines for industry developers on where to focus their efforts. She has published over 100 papers in conferences and journals in her field, including many top-tier publications at venues such as SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, and IEEE TVCG, etc. She serves as Associate Editor on journals such as ACM Transactions on Applied Perception and Computer Graphics Forum, and is a regular member of many international program committees (including ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics).

Homepage: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Rachel.McDonnell

Sponsored in part by:   Meta Reality Labs Pittsburgh