Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8782-5797

Document Type

Conference Paper

Disciplines

1.2 COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

Publication Details

Presented at  the 11th International Conference on Virtual Reality (ICVR 2025). Published in IEEE.

10.1109/ICVR66534.2025.11172599

Abstract

Social virtual reality (VR) applications have become more ubiquitous in recent years; central to this is the communication pipeline, how users perceive virtual human facial expressions, and how they control them in real time, especially when using VR devices without face-tracking. We investigated both aspects in a set of experiments. Firstly, we compared the perception of virtual human emotions on a traditional 2D screen and in VR. In a second experiment, we used a validated set of stimuli to compare three different control methods for manipulating an avatar’s facial expressions in VR. These control methods utilize non-tracking control techniques, which do not rely on real-time face tracking but rely on alternative inputs via the VR controller. Our analysis shows that in VR, the effectiveness ratings for happy, sad, and surprise were significantly higher, and disgust was significantly more recognizable, compared to the screen. These findings contribute to our understanding of virtual human based emotional communication in VR by demonstrating that the perception of facial expression varies between screen and VR. Additionally, we identify raycast selection (point and click) as the most accurate control method, whereas thumbstick labeled (using a controller thumbstick with UI labels for guidance) was the fastest and most preferred method by participants.

DOI

10.1109/ICVR66534.2025.11172599

Funder

Research Ireland

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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