We examined the effects of the emotional facial expressions of a virtual character (VC) on human frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry (putatively indexing approach/withdrawal motivation), facial electromyographic (EMG) activity (emotional expressions), and social decision making (cooperation/defection). In a within-subjects design, the participants played the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game with VCs with different dynamic facial expressions (predefined or dependent on the participant's electrodermal and facial EMG activity). In general, VC facial expressions elicited congruent facial muscle activity. However, both frontal EEG asymmetry and facial EMG activity elicited by an angry VC facial expression varied as a function of preceding interactional events (human collaboration/defection). Pre-decision inner emotional-motivational processes and emotional facial expressions were dissociated, suggesting that human goals influence pre-decision frontal asymmetry, whereas display rules may affect (pre-decision) emotional expressions in human-VC interaction. An angry VC facial expression, high pre-decision corrugator EMG activity, and relatively greater left frontal activation predicted the participant's decision to defect. Both post-decision frontal asymmetry and facial EMG activity were related to reciprocal cooperation. The results suggest that the justifiability of VC emotional expressions and the perceived fairness of VC actions influence human emotional responses.

The uncanny valley (UV) hypothesis, which predicts that almost but not fully humanlike artificial characters elicit negative evaluations, has become increasingly influential. At the same time, the hypothesis has become associated with many computer-animated films that have aimed at high realism. In the present investigation, we tested whether semirealistic animated film characters do in fact elicit negative evaluations. Fifty-four participants were asked to evaluate five matched film excerpts from each of cartoonish, semirealistic, and human-acted films. Mixed model analyses were conducted to reduce the effects of participant and stimulus related confounds. Explicit selections made after the experiment confirmed that participants associated semirealistic film characters correctly with the UV. Semirealistic animated characters also received higher eeriness ratings than the other film characters. In particular, two semirealistic films ‘Beowulf’ and ‘The Polar Express’ were selected the most often explicitly, and ‘Beowulf’ also received higher eeriness ratings than any other film. Somewhat unexpectedly, cartoonish characters received the highest strangeness ratings and (after confound correction) the lowest likability ratings. Taken together, the present findings demonstrate that semirealistic animated film characters are more eerie than cartoonish characters or real actors, and hence provide evidence for the existence of the UV in animated film characters.

Television (TV) programs are increasingly augmented with second-screen applications that can provide complementary information and social media interaction related to the program. However, there is a lack of understanding about the optimal design of such applications. In this paper, we study the effects of complementary information and tweets on the media experience indexed by a comprehensive self-report questionnaire. We built a custom second-screen tablet application and conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of complementary information and tweets on the media experience of TV programs. Apart from reducing concentration and immersion, neither the presence of complementary information nor the presence of tweets affected the media experience of the TV programs, whereas the media experience of second-screen content depended on which program it accompanied. Our results demonstrate that the media experience of complementary information and tweets presented on second screens differs between TV programs.