Meaning from motion: Exploring the affective properties of simple animation

Candidate: Ai Nakatani
Type: Master of Science (MSc), School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Date: December 1, 2009
Senior Supervisor: Lyn Bartram
Thesis: Download Thesis Document

Abstract

Recent work has shown the potential of basic perceptual properties of motion for notification, association and visual search.  Yet evidence from fields as diverse as perceptual science, social psychology and the performing arts suggest that motion has much richer communication potential in its interpretative scope.  A long history of research and practice in the affective properties of motion has resulted in a bewildering plethora of potentially rich communicative attributes.  However, we have little empirical evidence on how and whether these perceptual effects and impressions can be computationally manipulated in a display environment as variables of affective communication.
In this research we first explore attributes of expressive motion and report initial results from several studies in which we explored which attributes might be most important in distinguishing one motion from another.  We then investigate how attributes of simple motion contribute to emotional interpretation.  Our results show that even small abstract motions can reliably evoke affective interpretations given particular motoin attributes.  In particular, speed, trajectory and position strongly influence motion interpretation.  These results have implications for the design of affective user interfaces and information visualizations.