Non-verbal signals expressed through body language play a crucial role in multi-modal human communication during social relations. Indeed, in all cultures, facial expressions are the most universal and direct signs to express innate emotional cues. A human face conveys important information in social interactions and helps us to better understand our social partners and establish empathic links. Latest researches show that humanoid and social robots are becoming increasingly similar to humans, both esthetically and expressively. However, their visual expressiveness is a crucial issue that must be improved to make these robots more realistic and intuitively perceivable by humans as not different from them. This study concerns the capability of a humanoid robot to exhibit emotions through facial expressions. More specifically, emotional signs performed by a humanoid robot have been compared with corresponding human facial expressions in terms of recognition rate and response time. The set of stimuli included standardized human expressions taken from an Ekman-based database and the same facial expressions performed by the robot. Furthermore, participants’ psychophysiological responses have been explored to investigate whether there could be differences induced by interpreting robot or human emotional stimuli. Preliminary results show a trend to better recognize expressions performed by the robot than 2D photos or 3D models. Moreover, no significant differences in the subjects’ psychophysiological state have been found during the discrimination of facial expressions performed by the robot in comparison with the same task performed with 2D photos and 3D models.


    Access

    Download


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Can a Humanoid Face be Expressive? A Psychophysiological Investigation



    Publication date :

    2015-01-01



    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    DDC:    629



    Facially expressive humanoid robotic face

    Faraj, Zanwar / Selamet, Mert / Morales, Carlos et al. | BASE | 2020

    Free access

    Expressive face recognition and synthesis

    Abboud, Bouchra / Davoine, Franck / Dang, Mo | IEEE | 2003


    Expressive handovers: neural and behavioral effects of different attitudes in humanoid actions

    Vannucci Fabio / Di Cesare Giuseppe / Rea Francesco et al. | BASE | 2020

    Free access

    Two Psychophysiological Scales for the Description of \Psychophysiological Load\""

    Johannes, Bernd / Salnitski, Vyacheslav Petrovich / Wittels, Peter | AIAA | 2004


    Psychophysiological Readiness and Sustainability

    Hickman, J. R. / Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997