Challenges and opportunities in portraying emotion in generated sign language

TL;DR

This paper proposes a two-parameter system for controlling emotional facial expressions in sign language avatars, aiming to improve the consistency and nuance of emotional portrayal in generated sign language.

Contribution

Introduces an intuitive two-parameter emotive representation and EASIER notation for better emotional expression control in sign language avatars.

Findings

Enhanced emotional expression control in avatars

Potential for more nuanced emotional states

Improved consistency in emotional annotations

Abstract

Non-manual signals in sign languages continue to be a challenge for signing avatars. More specifically, emotional content has been difficult to incorporate because of a lack of a standard method of specifying the avatar's emotional state. This paper explores the application of an intuitive two-parameter representation for emotive non-manual signals to the Paula signing avatar that shows promise for facilitating the linguistic specification of emotional facial expressions in a more coherent manner than previous methods. Users can apply these parameters to control Paula's emotional expressions through a textual representation called the EASIER notation. The representation can allow avatars to express more nuanced emotional states using two numerical parameters. It also has the potential to enable more consistent specification of emotional non-manual signals in linguistic annotations which drive signing avatars.