Search

Wrinkles, blushing, sweating and tears are physiological manifestations of emotions in humans. Therefore, the simulation of these phenomena is important for the goal of building believable virtual humans which interact naturally and effectively with humans. This paper describes a real-time model for the simulation of wrinkles, blushing, sweating and tears. A study is also conducted to assess the influence of the model on the perception of surprise, sadness, anger, shame, pride and fear. The study follows a repeated-measures design where subjects compare how well is each emotion expressed by virtual humans with or without these phenomena. The results reveal a significant positive effect on the perception of surprise, sadness, anger, shame and fear. The relevance of these results is discussed for the fields of virtual humans and expression of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In soccer, goalkeepers routinely wear gloves that may restrict heat loss from the hands and cause thermal discomfort. In order to alleviate this problem phase control materials (PCMs) have been incorporated into gloves to reduce heat load inside the glove, thereby maintaining a comfortable temperature. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of these materials during a simulation of goalkeeping activities. Seven subjects carried out two sessions of goalkeeper- specific exercise on a non-motorized treadmill, one session with a PCM glove and one session with a normal foam material glove (NFM). All sites of skin temperature measurement, except mean whole-body skin temperature, showed uniformly that the PCM glove caused a greater increase in skin temperature of the hand compared to the NFM glove. These results suggest that this particular specification of PCM promotes heat gain rather than heat loss and is therefore inappropriate to enhance thermal comfort in this setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]