IMPACT OF THE REALISTIC LEVEL OF THE ANIMATED TALKING-HEAD CHARACTER ON STUDENTS EMOTION AND PERFORMANCE

Abstract

The talking-head animation is an animated instruction that can assist pronunciation learning. Though, mistake in design of the animated characters might cause negative impact on students. This study focuses on the alleged issue of Uncanny Valley’s emotional impact on students which occurs when the animated character designed resembles a human. Therefore, this study seeks to evaluate the effect of various animated talking-head character’s realism on pronunciation learning among Community College students. The evaluation will be done through pronunciation and emotional test using AEQ questionnaire once the students had completed exploring the courseware in self learning condition. Four animated talking-head courseware with different realistic levels were developed to be tested and each courseware was studied independently by 20 students. A total of 80 students from four community colleges in Perak were selected for this study. Each Overall, descriptive statistical tests, such as the mean, standard deviation, and percentages were used to answer the research questions. The results showed that the non-realistic three-dimensional talking-head animation (3D-TR) courseware had positive effect on emotion and better pronunciation performance among students, while the realistic three-dimensional talking-head animation courseware (3D-R) had the lowest achievement of these two aspects. Therefore, the use of 3D-TR talking -head animated character is the best realism level to create positive emotions and improving the performance of students

Keywords

• talking-head animation character
• pronunciation learning
• three-dimensional animation
• animated instruction
• uncanny valley