Computers That Can Read Complex Facial Expressions
Think you could easily distinguish the expressions for “happily disgusted” or “sadly angry?” New computational mapping has made it possible for computers to do just that. Researchers at Ohio State University have cataloged an impressive 21 distinct, complex human facial expressions and made it possible for computers to recognize their subtle differences. The team hopes to use this study to track and map the origins of human emotions in the brain and even help to diagnose conditions like autism and PTSD. From OSU.edu:
Until now, cognitive scientists have confined their studies to six basic emotions—happy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised and disgusted—mostly because the facial expressions for them were thought to be self-evident, Martinez explained.
But deciphering a person’s brain functioning with only six categories is like painting a portrait with only primary colors, Martinez said: it can provide an abstracted image of the person, but not a true-to-life one.
What Martinez and his team have done is more than triple the color palette—with a suite of emotional categories that can be measured by the proposed computational model and applied in rigorous scientific study.
“In cognitive science, we have this basic assumption that the brain is a computer. So we want to find the algorithm implemented in our brain that allows us to recognize emotion in facial expressions,” he said. “In the past, when we were trying to decode that algorithm using only those six basic emotion categories, we were having tremendous difficulty. Hopefully with the addition of more categories, we’ll now have a better way of decoding and analyzing the algorithm in the brain.”
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
