Evaluating the perception of group emotion from full body movements in the context of virtual crowds

Simulating the behavior of crowds of artificial entities that have humanoid embodiments has become an important element in computer graphics and special effects. However, many important questions remain in relation to the perception of social behavior and expression of emotions in virtual crowds. Specifically, few studies have considered the role of background context on the perception of the full-body emotion expressed by sub-constituents of the crowd i.e. individuals and small groups. In this paper, we present the results of perceptual studies in which animated scenes of expressive virtual crowd behavior were rated in terms of their valence by participants. The behaviors of a task-irrelevant crowd in the background were altered between neutral, happy and sad in order to investigate effects on the perception of emotion from task-relevant individuals in the foreground. Effects of the task irrelevant background on ratings of foreground characters were found, including cases that accompanied negatively valenced stimuli.