Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a psychological test that determines patients who are attached to their appearances by analyzing the similarity between the patients and their avatars. The subjects were 48 female university students and office workers with an average age of 23.9±4.1 years. The materials for this study were: full-faced photographs, favorite avatars created by the subjects themselves, and a questionnaire for the psychological test. The components of these photos and avatars-outlines of the face, eyes, nose, lips and eyebrows-were calculated into their principal component scores by using the reported data of Japanese facial components through principal component analysis. The sizes of the facial photos and avatars were standardized by using a portrait-making software and "FaceFit^<TM>" in a facial image processing system for human-like "Kansei" agents. The subjects were classified into a healthy group (H group; 10 participants, 21 % of all subjects) and a group who remained attached to their appearance (S group; 9 participants, 19%) by the scores of the Sheehan Disability Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Thirty two indicator points were set on the facial photos and avatars of the H and S groups. Using these points, the similarity between groups was investigated by inner products of vectors, polar coordinates and thin plate spline analysis between the facial photos and the avatars. The results from these analyses indicated that participants in the S group created avatars closer to their facial photos than those in the H group.
