The realistic animation of virtual characters can enhance user experience. Motion-editing methods such as keyframing and motion capture are effective for pre-determined animations but are incapable of real-time generation. Algorithm-based dynamic simulation and machine learning-based motion synthesis are procedural but too complex. This thesis explores an approach known as animation interpolation, which benefits from the strengths of both types of methods. Animation interpolation generates full animation sequences by assembling pre-defined motion primitives or key poses in real-time. <div><br></div><div>The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the naturalness of character animation in three common interpolation methods: linear Euler interpolation, spherical linear quaternion interpolation, and spherical spline quaternion interpolation. Many researchers have studied the mathematical equations, motion curves, and velocity graphs of these algorithms. This thesis focuses on the perceptual evaluation and the implementation of expressive upper body character animation. </div><div><br></div><div>During the experimental studies, 97 participants watched 12 animation clips of a character performing four different upper body motions using three interpolation methods. The motions were based on McNeill’s classification of body gestures (beat gesture, deictic gesture, iconic gesture, and metaphoric gesture). After viewing each clip, the participants rated the naturalness on a 5-point Likert scale. The results showed that animations generated using spherical spline quaternion interpolation were perceived as significantly more natural than those generated from the other two interpolation methods.</div>

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第19499号 / 理博第4159号 / 新制||理||1597(附属図書館) / 32535 / 京都大学大学院理学研究科物理学・宇宙物理学専攻 / (主査)教授 川合 光, 教授 畑 浩之, 教授 田中 貴浩 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Yes / his paper reports the findings of a study that presented bi-modal audio-visual stimuli (video footage), to experimental subjects under controlled conditions, in order to obtain reliable estimates of perceived wildness, naturalness, felt remoteness and tranquillity. The research extends beyond the literature and demonstrates that unlike tranquillity, wildness appears to be a more intellectual or cognitive construct. However, it does relate well to remoteness and naturalness and is reduced by the presence of mechanical noise. By using the approach previously employed for the development of a Tranquillity Rating Prediction Tool (TRAPT), it has been demonstrated that a similar methodology is also appropriate for wildness. WRAPT (Wildness Rating Prediction Tool) is the first attempt to predict wildness from physical variables, the values of which can be readily obtained from field surveys supplemented by detailed maps where large areas require assessment. The findings of this study will be of interest to those responsible for managing and marketing protected areas such as National Parks, practitioners involved in carrying out landscape character assessments, cartographers wishing to incorporate reliable acoustic data within their vector or raster based stacks and landscape architects involved in designing wild and tranquil spaces across a range of scales.

Matte surfaces, that is, those that are dull or lusterless not glossy and shiny, are a current trend in packaging. But does packaging surface affect what consumers think about the product inside it? We focus on consumers' perception of packaged food products at the point of sale. Using three experiments, we show that food in matte packaging can be perceived as more natural. Notably, the effect of matte packaging only holds for rather artificial products. When matte packaging increases perceptions of product naturalness, consumers also expect the product to be tastier and are more likely to buy it.

Thesis advisor: Robert C. Bartlett / This dissertation investigates Aristotle’s famous claim that “the human being is by nature a political animal.” This claim seems to express a basic disagreement between Aristotelian political philosophy and the contractarian political philosophy that informs modern liberalism. Aristotle asserts, contrary to Hobbes, for instance, that the political community is not a convention between naturally individual human beings but a natural entity in its own right prior to and authoritative over the individual. Yet not only are Aristotle’s reasons for supposing that we are naturally political obscure and questionable, but the meaning of Aristotle’s claim that we are naturally political is not altogether clear. For not only does Aristotle suggest that we are naturally political because the city is naturally prior to and authoritative over us, but he suggests we are political animals above all due to our distinctive faculty of reason, or speech, which, because it is the medium of the perception of advantage and justice that informs our actions, is what constitutes the city. Speech, in other words, is what brings the city to sight as the natural whole Aristotle asserts it to be. This suggests, however, that the naturalness of politics must be evaluated on the basis of such speech, which admits of clarification, and not on the basis Aristotle originally offers, which is speculation about the origins of the city. We argue that Aristotle’s dialectical examinations of despotic, political, and kingly forms of rule provide an outline of this task of clarification, which alone can permit us to evaluate the naturalness of politics. A close reading of these examinations, however, indicates that Aristotle ultimately rejects the view that the city is the natural whole it presents itself as being. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Automobile dashboards are evolving into intelligent largely screen-based computer interfaces. Recent evidence suggests unnatural aspects of some secondary systems (including infotainment systems). Naturalness of interaction is a minority discipline not yet applied to the automobile; while automotive interface research is a mainly quantitative discipline that has not yet applied a naturalness approach. To advance the field, a measurement scale based on rigorous qualitative exploration of natural-feeling interaction with secondary controls was required. Study 1 used ethnographic interview with Contextual Inquiry inside 12 ordinary drivers' cars, to investigate natural-feeling aspects of past, present and future driver-car interactions. Thematic analysis suggested a framework of ten characteristics. Half concerned control and physicality; half concerned perceived socio-intelligent behaviours of the car. Study 2 involved intensive exploratory workshops with ten drivers comprising Think Aloud, artefact modelling and focus groups, to explore natural-feeling interaction with secondary controls in different ways. The resulting thematic framework comprised 11 characteristics in four categories: familiarity/control, physical connection, low visual/cognitive demand, and humanlike intelligence and communication. Study 3 comprised two ethnographic participant observations. Eight drivers were observed interacting with their controls during long road journeys. Twenty-two drivers were observed interacting verbally with futuristic 'intelligent' secondary systems while driving on public roads. Design guidelines relating to physicality, usability, automation, and humanlike communication were formulated. Study 4 converted all the qualitative findings into a questionnaire comprising 46 bipolar five-point scales. Eighty-one drivers used it to rate one control in their cars. Correlation and factor analyses revealed three underlying factors and 14 items suitable for the first industrially applicable measurement scale for driver-car naturalness. These items concern perceived helpfulness, politeness, competence, predictability, control, ease, mental demands, intuitiveness, 'realness', instantaneousness, communication, logical location, mapping and 'affordance'. Initial testing found acceptable validity. The conclusion recommends further data collection, expanded validity testing, and potential applications to self-driving cars.

本論文乃在瞭解王弼《老子注》中，依著境界心靈而展開的自然意義之形上學，是否可以涵攝具有系統性、歷史性的客觀名教社會之存在，尤其從實踐的觀點探討王弼形上學可否開出一道家式的社會存有論，由自然境界實踐地證立客觀實有之存立，並將探討如此的哲學思考型態與漢末至曹魏正始年間士人心態上彼此存在的關聯。全文分六章： 首章為緒論，略述問題之緣起及「世界」、「境界」、「名教」、「自然」之意涵。 第二章探討玄學發展的社會心理背景，尤其在展示士人自漢末以來對名教社會的心態，以做為瞭解王弼玄學之準備。 第三章則分析老子「道」的性格，王弼學既依道家老子思想而立，故對老子「道」之瞭解乃一基本的工作，以做為判定王氏理論向度之基礎。 第四章則在說明王弼如何完成其「名教因於自然」之理論架構，以做為對王氏學批判之準備。 第五章則對以老子思想為骨幹的王弼理論提出兩點商榷，從其形上學及人性論中所含的局限性而指出其理論之困局，「名教因於自然」並不可能成立。 第六章結論，對王弼理論的格局再加以批判說明，並回應第二章，點出玄學家之哲學思考與其對世界之心態之間存在的一致性。

<p> In this paper, the authors explore different approaches to animating 3D facial emotions, some of which use manual keyframe facial animation and some of which use machine learning. To compare approaches the authors conducted an experiment consisting of side-by-side comparisons of animation clips generated by skeleton, blendshape, audio-driven, and vision-based capture techniques.</p> <p>Ninety-five participants viewed twenty face animation clips of characters expressing five distinct emotions (anger, sadness, happiness, fear, neutral), which were created using four different facial animation techniques. After viewing each clip, the participants were asked to score the naturalness on a 5-point Likert scale and to identify the emotions that the characters appeared to be conveying.</p> <p>Although the happy emotion clips differed slightly in the naturalness ratings, the naturalness scores of happy emotions produced by the four methods tended to be consistent. The naturalness ratings of the fear emotion created with skeletal animation were higher than other methods.Recognition of sad and neutral were very low for all methods as compared to other emotions. Findings also showed that a few people participants were able to identify the clips that were machine generated rather than created by a human artist.The means, boxplots and HSD revealed that the skeleton approach had significantly higher ratings for naturalness and higher recognition rate than the other methods.</p>

Conservation in Canada is increasingly driven by land use planning processes. Approaches to governing nature conservation have shifted dramatically from protecting isolated pristine areas to greater attention to the remaining fragments of greenspace in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. The ways that societies govern and use nature are always changing, and these physical management actions are connected to deeply rooted cultural norms and values about the ideal relationship between humans and nature. In the land use planning approach to conservation, citizens and governments find value and construct meaning for remaining nature rather than beginning with normative considerations of what is most worthy of protection. At the root of this conservation planning trend is a growing appreciation for hybrid nature that is valued as natural in spite of the past or present influences upon it. This represents a dramatic shift from the traditional values involved in North American nature conservation, where nature was most valued for its perceived separation from human influence and protected to maintain its untouched qualities. In light of these ideological shifts in the ways that Canadians value and in turn manage nature, is there a corresponding change in the ways that conservation activists perceive environmental value and evaluate naturalness? An increasing number of studies demonstrate that public valuation of nature is not limited to pristine environments: even highly disturbed environments can be valued as natural and are not perceived as a form of lesser nature. Conceptions of what is natural and what is not are highly subjective and variable; in particular, the body of work on the social dimensions of both invasive species and ecological restoration demonstrates the ways in which people construct naturalness in accord with their values and cultural context. By exploring the extent to which people perceive invasive species as reducing naturalness and how ecological restoration is perceived to restore it, these subjects serve as excellent conceptual lenses for exploring constructions of nature. This study explores the subtle variations in environmental values and perception of naturalness among a study population who self-identify as pursuing the same goal: ensuring the continued protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine. The Moraine is a partly urbanized landform in southern Ontario that is situated within a complex hybrid socio-ecological landscape. It is also the subject of an active and high profile conservation movement that has spanned over 40 years. Using a combination of interviews and Q Method, this study explored how citizens engaged in Oak Ridges Moraine conservation perceive both the current and ideal state of naturalness on the Moraine, with specific emphasis on how the discourses these citizens use to frame the Moraine invoke the concept of naturalness Findings from this study reveal that Moraine activists represent a conservation paradox: they value the natural, non-human qualities of the landform, yet at the same time identify the Moraine as a hybrid landscape with both social and ecological qualities. In particular, respondents indicated a strong interest in naturalness in the context of invasive species and ecological restoration, yet at the same time identified the naturalness of the Moraine to be a lesser priority in the face of urban development pressures. In this way, citizens engaged in Moraine conservation respond to the hybrid quality of the Moraine landscape by moving beyond the binary distinction between nature and society, situating themselves as both apart from and a part of the landscape at the same time. This finding demonstrates how values for conserving nature are affected by hybridity between social and ecological systems, and suggests how embracing the paradox of hybrid nature can contribute to understanding and managing complex socio-ecological systems.

Tal- och röstförändringar är vanligt förekommande hos personer med Parkinsons sjukdom. Dessa påverkar ofta talarens förståelighet men kan också ha en negativ inverkan på talets naturlighet. Forskning angående vilka faktorer som påverkar talets naturlighet är i dagsläget begränsad, varför föreliggande studie har genomförts. Syftet med studien var att undersöka huruvida den uppfattade talnaturligheten kunde härledas till några specifika tal- och röstparametrar. I föreliggande studie konstruerades ett testbatteri för att elicitera talmaterial från åtta personer med Parkinsons sjukdom. Forskningspersonernas röster spelades in och inspelningarna graderades sedan av 27 naiva lyssnare gällande förståelighet och talnaturlighet. Korrelationstester genomfördes slutligen för att hitta eventuella samband mellan lyssnarnas bedömning och olika akustiska parametrar. Resultatet visade att tal- och artikulationshastighet var den faktor med störst inverkan på lyssnargruppens bedömning av talnaturlighet, där de med långsammast hastighet bedömdes ha mest onaturligt tal. Vidare fanns starka indikationer på att grad av förståelighet korrelerade med bedömningen av talnaturlighet. I föreliggande studie tycktes inga övriga akustiska parametrar ha en statistiskt signifikant korrelation med lyssnargruppens bedömning av talnaturlighet. / Speech and voice changes are common in Parkinson’s disease. These changes can affect the speaker’s intelligibility but can also have a negative impact on the perceived naturalness of speech. The research available regarding the different factors that affect speech naturalness is scarce, which was the motivation behind this study. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the level of perceived speech naturalness could derive from any specific aspects of speech. This was accomplished by recording speech samples from eight people with Parkinson’s disease using a test battery with various speech tasks. These samples were presented to a group of 27 naive listeners whose task was to judge the level of intelligibility as well as the level of speech naturalness. Correlations were then made between their assessments and various acoustic measurements. The main finding of the present study was that speech and articulation rate seemed to have the greatest impact on the perceived level of naturalness, where the people who had the slowest rate were judged to be the least natural sounding. Furthermore there were strong indications that the level of intelligibility correlated with the level of speech naturalness. In this study there were no other acoustic correlates found with statistical significance.