Abstract
The word ”Kemonomimi” refers to the dog or cat like ears of humanoid characters, or to the animal ears themselves. And it is said that the posture of the ears expresses emotion. This study focuses on the emotional expression ability of Kemonomimi, and aims to apply this ability to the emotional expression interface. The interface to be developed consists of two parts: an internal mechanic part and an external decorative part. The former is designed to reproduce various postures of the animal ears, and the latter is designed to reproduce the ear shapes of various animal species. Before developing the interface, we verified the ability of emotional expression by the posture of the animal ears. The results showed that it is highly possible to express surprise by tilting the ears backward and negative emotions by tilting the ears forward. It was also suggested that the parameters of pleasure and arousal in the PAD model of emotion could be controlled by postural changes in the left-right and the rotation direction of the animal ears.
