Analyzing human-avatar interaction with neurotypical and not neurotypical users

Abstract

Assistive technologies have been used to improve the quality of life of people who have been diagnosed with health issues. In this case, we aim to use an assistive technology in the shape of an affective avatar to help people who have been diagnosed with different forms of Social Communications Disorders (SCD). The designed avatar presents a humanoid face that displays emotions with a subtlety akin to that of real life human emotions, with those emotions changing according to the interactions that the user chooses to perform on the avatar. We have used Blender for the design of the emotions, which are happiness, sadness, surprise, fear and anger, plus a neutral emotion, while Unity was used to dictate the behavior of the avatar when the interactions were performed, which could be positive (caress), negative (poke) or neutral (wait). The avatar has been evaluated by 48 people from different backgrounds and the results show the overall positive reception by the users, as well as the difference between neurotypical and non-neurotypical users in terms of emotion recognition and chosen interactions. A ground truth has been established in terms of prototypic empathic interactions by the users.