Uncanny Speech - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 224

As well as being regarded of the wrong pitch,
speech that is delivered in a slow, monotone way
increased the uncanny for both zombie characters
and human-like characters not intended to contest a
sense of the real. Within the UM study, the Chatbot
character received a less than average rating for
perceived familiarity and was placed with three
other zombie characters with a median strangeness
value of just three (see Table 1). The Chatbot's
voice was rated individually as being slow (75%),
monotone (59%), and of an incorrect intonation
(76%). The “speech” for Zombie 1, grouped with
the Chatbot character with a median strangeness
value of three, was also judged individually as
being monotone (29%), slow (42%), and of an in-
correct intonation (34%). Including such qualities
of speech for the zombie may have been a con-
scious design decision by developers to increase
the perceived eeriness for a character intended to
elicit an uncanny sensation. (As mentioned above,
such qualities enhanced the overall impact for the
monster Dracula.) However the crippled speech
style for the Chatbot appeared unnatural and
unreal. Such qualities for this character's speech
were factors that viewers found most annoying
and irritating, exaggerating the uncanny for this
character when perhaps this was not intended.
Our results imply that uncanniness is increased
if speech is judged to be of the wrong pitch, too
monotone, or slow in delivery style. Whilst such
qualities can work to the advantage of antipathetic
characters by increasing the fear factor, these
qualities may work against empathetic characters
in the role of hero or protagonist within a game.
A designer may wish the player to have a posi-
tive affiliation with the protagonist character, yet
the designer may unwittingly create an uncanny
sensation for the player with speech qualities that
sound strange to the viewer. Speech prerecorded
in a manner that is too slow or monotone to aid
clarity for post-production purposes may be judged
as unnatural and should be instead recorded at
an appropriate tempo. Pitch and tone of speech
that do not match the facial expression or given

circumstance for a character may be regarded as
out of context and confusing for a viewer. To avoid
the uncanny, attention should be given to ensur-
ing that the pitch of voice accurately depicts the
given emotion for a character and, once speech has
been recorded at the correct pitch, that the facial
expression conveys that emotion convincingly.

LIP-sYNcHrONIZAtION
VOcALIZAtION

The process of matching lip movement to speech
is an integral factor in maintaining believability
for an onscreen character (Atkinson, 2009). For
first-person shooters (FPS) and other similar types
of action game, there are limited periods during
gameplay when attention is focused solely on a
headshot of a speaking character. Close up shots
of a player's character, comrades or antagonists
are predominantly used when exchanging infor-
mation during gameplay or during cinematic cut
scenes and trailers.
The music genre of computer games provides
an outlet for musicians to promote and sell their
work (Kendall, 2009; Ripken, 2009). As well as
FPS games, music games can a provide challenge
for developers with regards to facial animation
and sound. The Beatles: Rock Band (EA Games,
2009) highlights the recent success of the merger
of music and computer games that use realistic,
human-like characters to represent music artists.
It has been found, however, that uncanny traits
can leave viewers dissatisfied with particular
characters within the context of a computer game
(Tinwell, 2009). With emphasis directed at a
character's mouth as the vocals are matched to the
music tracks, it is important that an artist's identity
be transferred effectively within this new medium
(Ripken, 2009). Factors such as asynchrony may
result in a negative impact on the overall believ-
ability for such characters.
This section discusses the outcomes of a lack
of synchrony for lip-vocalization narration in film