Exploring the Behavioral and Facial Similarities of Humans and their Virtual Representations

在许多交流、教育和娱乐环境中，人们通过自己的某种数字表现形式与他人互动。这个研究项目研究了两种类型的表现：1)行为像特定个体，但在特定维度上看起来与该个体不同的虚拟人；2)看起来像特定个体，但执行一些该个体从未做过的新动作的虚拟人。在第一类中，试点工作表明人们的行为符合其表征的视觉特征。在第二类中，试点工作已经证明，当数字表示看起来像他们时，人们会比不像他们时更多地为数字表示的行为建模。当前的项目从交互性的角度探讨了这种效应背后的强度、持续时间和过程。具体来说，该项目将开发使自己看起来实时变化的技术方面。变老，变年轻，变高，更有吸引力，以及看到自己改变形状或社会类别的心理暗示。这项工作是危险的,因为)目前还不清楚如果人类将自然地回应版本的改变自我,b)把一个三维的计算机算法面临模仿某个特定用户从未测试改变年龄,性别,和吸引力的一个特定的脸,和c)没有研究人员测试的含义在虚拟现实周后接触数字模型。几个世纪以来，人类一直依赖于对自己的抽象描述。绘画肖像和雕像一直是历史艺术的基石之一。然而，在数字时代，表现形式比它们的物理对应物更加动态和可转换。考虑到相当一部分人每天花费数小时通过数字表现形式进行互动（游戏邦注：如手机上的声音、在线游戏中的角色、Facebook等社交网站上的个人资料），理解这一现象的后果至关重要。例如，效果持续多长时间，哪些参数（例如，交互性、相似性等）贡献最大？目前的提议有可能改变我们对与彼此的在线版本互动的影响的看法，因此涉及到通信、心理学、教育和计算机科学等领域。总之，在人们在数字空间中拥有身份的世界里，理解这些数字表征与物理自我的关系是至关重要的。

In many communication, education, and entertainment contexts, people interact with others via some type of digital representations of themselves. This research project examines two types of such representations: 1) virtual humans that behave like a specific individual but looks different from that individual on a specific dimension, and 2) virtual humans that look like a specific individual but perform some novel action which that individual has never done. In the first category, pilot work has demonstrated that people's behavior conforms to the visual features of their representations. In the second category, pilot work has demonstrated that people model the behavior of digital representations more when the representation looks like them than when it does not. The current project explores the strength, duration, and processes behind this effect in terms of interactivity. Specifically, the project will develop the technical aspects of making oneself appear to change in real-time?get older, younger, taller, more attractive, as well as the psychological implications of seeing oneself change shape or social category. This work is risky because a) it is unclear if a human will respond in a natural way to an altered version of the self, b) the computer algorithms that take a three-dimensional face modeled after a specific user have never been tested in terms of changing the age, gender, and attractiveness of a specific face, and c) no researchers have ever tested the implications of being in virtual reality weeks after the exposure to a digital model.Humans have relied upon abstract representations of themselves for centuries?painted portraits and statues have been one of the cornerstones of historical art. However in the digital age, representations are much more dynamic and transformable than their physical counterparts. Given that a substantial portion of the population are spending literally hours per day interacting via digital representations (e.g., voices on cell phones, characters in online games, profiles on social network web sites such as Facebook), understanding the ramifications of this phenomenon is crucial. For example, how long do the effects last, and what parameters contribute (e.g., interactivity, similarity, etc.) most? The current proposal has the potential to change the way we think about the implications of interacting with online versions of one another, and consequently relates to the fields of communication, psychology, education, and computer science. In sum, in the world in which people have identities in digital space, understanding how those digital representations relate to the physical self is paramount.