Researchers Conduct Study to Enable Robots Recognize Facial Expressions

A research team from the Queen Mary University and the University College London are working on a project, which is investigating if robots and computers have the ability to read clues from human faces when they interact with others.

They plan to display their research findings at the annual exhibition which is scheduled from the 5^th to 10^th of July. People who visit the exhibition would be able to see how the brain interprets faces, how they would look if they switched genders and also learn how to transfer facial movements from one person’s face to another. Visitors would also get a chance to see sophisticated computer vision systems that have the ability to recognise facial expressions.

Professor Peter McOwan explained that they would be displaying the latest findings from the LIREC project, which aims to create robots that can be treated as socially aware companions and graphical personalities. He added that the visitors could find out if the computer vision systems at the exhibition have the ability to identify their smiles and also be able to watch videos showing their robots in action as well as discuss with them regarding the project. He belongs to the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London. For computer scientists to analyse facial movement and develop realistic motion pictures it is important to understand how to break facial movement into simpler facial actions. McOwan explained that their research work revolved around creating software which would help robots interact with humans and understand human emotions. Another researcher added that the face was regarded as a static sample derived from a dynamic sequence of movements and the transfer of motion onto other faces was vital to studying human face dynamics. Professor Cecilia Heyes, from the University of Oxford, explained that the research was significant for analysing facial expressions, to determine how people mimic facial expressions and why people find it easier to recognize their own movements than those of their companions though they see their friend’s faces more often.