Has user perception of avatar expressions been tested?

[Karla]

The avatar, biohead_eyes.vzf includes morphs such as "fear," "surprise," "anger," etc.

Has anyone ever tested that users interpret the avatar as expressing the specific emotion (fear, surprise, anger, etc.) when the avatar presents the "fear," "surprise," "anger," etc. morphs? If so, how?

I would like to gauge if users perceive the avatars as expressing a "neutral" emotion when the avatars are expressing no morphs. I would also like to gauge what level of comfort the users personally experience when viewing different avatars. Any advice?

Having users view the avatars and then complete Likert-scale questionnaires about the emotions may be sufficient. For example, users might be asked to indicate their level of agreement from 1-5 (where 1 is Strongly Disagree and 5 is Strongly Agree) to statements such as "The avatar is expressing fear." or "I feel comfortable when looking at this avatar."

What do you think?

Thanks,
Karla