Creation and animation of a talking head with lip sync and expressions

A Talking Head is an animated model of a human head with synchronized lip movements and expressions. Back in the 1970s, Talking Heads were a major breakthrough in Human Computer Interaction. Ever since, they've been used as conversational agents in offline and web-based applications and as a teacher tool to enhance learning in students. Animated talking guides, like the ones used in MS Office demonstate a friendly and effective way to assist inexperienced users. Though, this topic has already been explored, there are certain linguistic challenges which impede the creation of an accurate, realistic and expressive Talking Head. With further advancements, it may be possible to generate accurate Talking Heads which can be lipread by the hearing impaired. Moreover, recent research shows that emotionally expressive avatars facilitate learning in people with autism spectrum disorder. [2nd Award