Integrated jerk as an indicator of affinity for artificial agent kinematics: laptop and virtual reality experiments involving index finger motion during two-digit grasping

PeerJ

article

James Hirose¹  Atsushi Nishikawa²  Yosuke Horiba³  Shigeru Inui³  Todd C. Pataky⁴ 

[1] Department of Biomedical Engineering, Shinshu University;Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering, Osaka University;Department of Advance Textile and Kansei Engineering, Shinshu University;Department of Human Health Sciences, Kyoto University

关键词: Kinematics;    Artificial motion naturalness;    Grasping;    Uncanny valley;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.9843

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Uncanny valley research has shown that human likeness is an important consideration when designing artificial agents. It has separately been shown that artificial agents exhibiting human-like kinematics can elicit positive perceptual responses. However the kinematic characteristics underlying that perception have not been elucidated. This paper proposes kinematic jerk amplitude as a candidate metric for kinematic human likeness, and aims to determine whether a perceptual optimum exists over a range of jerk values. We created minimum-jerk two-digit grasp kinematics in a prosthetic hand model, then added different amplitudes of temporally smooth noise to yield a variety of animations involving different total jerk levels, ranging from maximally smooth to highly jerky. Subjects indicated their perceptual affinity for these animations by simultaneously viewing two different animations side-by-side, first using a laptop, then separately within a virtual reality (VR) environment. Results suggest that (a) subjects generally preferred smoother kinematics, (b) subjects exhibited a small preference for rougher-than minimum jerk kinematics in the laptop experiment, and that (c) the preference for rougher-than minimum-jerk kinematics was amplified in the VR experiment. These results suggest that non-maximally smooth kinematics may be perceptually optimal in robots and other artificial agents.

【 授权许可】

CC BY