Emotion attribution to basic parametric static and dynamic stimuli

Abstract

The following research investigates the effect of basic visual stimuli on the attribution of basic emotions by the viewer. In an empirical study (N = 33) we used two groups of visually minimal expressive stimuli: dynamic and static. The dynamic stimuli consisted of an animated circle moving according to a structured set of movement parameters, derived from emotion expression literature. The parameters are direction, expansion, velocity variation, fluency, and corner bending. The static stimuli consisted of the minimal visual form of a smiley. The varied parameters were mouth openness, mouth curvature, and eye rotation. The findings describing the effect of the parameters on attributed emotions are presented. This paper shows how specific viewer affect attribution can be included in men machine interaction using minimal visual material.