Jennifer Hyde Designing Animated Human Characters as Conversational Partners: The Effect of Facial Expressiveness on Social Outcomes Degree Type: Ph.D. in Computer Science Advisor(s): Jessica Hodgins, Sara Kiesler Graduated: August 2014 Keywords: Animated Characters, Avatars, Facial Motion, Visual Realism, Perception, Human-Computer Interaction, Child-Computer Interaction, Computer-Mediated Communication, Avatar-Mediated Communication