Facial Color, Not Just Expression, Communicates Emotions | By Benjamin Ryan | inTech @PHARMATIVE
A smiling man is happy, a frowning woman is sad. A child with a furrowed brow is worried. These expressions, driven by shifts in facial muscles, signal to the world our emotions. But according to a new study, so do the shifting colors in the face, with blood flow color around the nose, eyebrows, cheeks helping communicate feelings. In theory, the central nervous system triggers these subtle changes, the emotional significance which others may only unconsciously recognize.
Publishing their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study’s authors started their research by photographing hundreds of facial expressions. They fed these images into a computer program that analyzed the relationship between various emotions, such as happy or sad, and color patterns in the face.
The researchers found that it no matter someone’s sex, race or skin tone, specific emotions were associated with particular facial color patterns.
Next the study authors took various color patterns that they’d identified as associated with certain emotions and superimposed those color patterns onto images of people with neutral expressions. Showing these images to 20 study participants, they asked them to assign each an emotion off of a list of 18 emotions, including basic options such as happy or sad as well as more multilayered feelings such as “happily surprised” or “sadly angry.”
The faces looked peculiar, given their inorganic, computer-generated appearance. Nevertheless the participants were largely able to correctly guess the emotion each image was intended to convey. Accuracy rates were a respective 75 percent, 70 percent and 65 percent for images colorized to appear sad, happy and angry.
To further explore how facial color influences the perception of emotion, the researchers took facial expressions associated with one emotion and gave them color patterns linked to another feeling. The participants did recognize that there was something off about these images, even if they couldn’t put their finger on what, and were able to clearly determine when the expression of a certain emotion was well matched with the color pattern linked to that emotion.
Building on these findings, the researchers then developed a computer algorithm that could register human emotion based on facial color. The computer turned out to be more accurate than humans in this regard, with an accuracy rate of 90 percent for happiness, 85 percent for various emotions related to happiness, 80 percent for anger, 75 percent for sadness, 70 percent for fear, and just 65 percent for “fearfully disgusted.”
The study’s findings are in keeping with many idioms in the English language that connect facial color with emotion, such as “green with envy,” “blushing bride,” or “argue till you’re blue in the face.” The investigators found, for example, that a blue-yellow cast around the lips and a red-green cast around the nose and forehead indicate disgust.
This study may also help explain why it’s so difficult for actors to convey emotion convincingly. While it may be easy enough to deliberately manipulate facial muscles to convey a certain emotion, if the blood flow in the face doesn’t match, such a face may ring untrue.
The study authors hope their research will prove useful to the fields of cognition, computer science, neuroscience and the study of human evolution. They are in the process of patenting their findings in hopes they will form the basis of future artificial intelligence that can recognize and emulate human emotion.
Sources: (1) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180319155736.htm; (2) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/03/16/1716084115
#FacialColor #FacialExpression #AI #inTech #Pharmative
Our faces broadcast our feelings in living color -- even when we don't move a muscle. That's the conclusion of a groundbreaking study into human expressions of emotion, which found that people are able to correctly identify other people's feelings up to 75 percent of the time -- based solely on subtle shifts in blood flow color around the nose, eyebrows, cheeks or chin.
A smiling man is happy, a frowning woman is sad. A child with a furrowed brow is worried. These expressions, driven by shifts in facial muscles, signal to the world our emotions. But according to a new study, so do the shifting colors in the face, with blood flow color around the nose, eyebrows, cheeks helping communicate feelings. In theory, the central nervous system triggers these subtle changes, the emotional significance which others may only unconsciously recognize.
Publishing their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study’s authors started their research by photographing hundreds of facial expressions. They fed these images into a computer program that analyzed the relationship between various emotions, such as happy or sad, and color patterns in the face.
The researchers found that it no matter someone’s sex, race or skin tone, specific emotions were associated with particular facial color patterns.
Next the study authors took various color patterns that they’d identified as associated with certain emotions and superimposed those color patterns onto images of people with neutral expressions. Showing these images to 20 study participants, they asked them to assign each an emotion off of a list of 18 emotions, including basic options such as happy or sad as well as more multilayered feelings such as “happily surprised” or “sadly angry.”
The faces looked peculiar, given their inorganic, computer-generated appearance. Nevertheless the participants were largely able to correctly guess the emotion each image was intended to convey. Accuracy rates were a respective 75 percent, 70 percent and 65 percent for images colorized to appear sad, happy and angry.
To further explore how facial color influences the perception of emotion, the researchers took facial expressions associated with one emotion and gave them color patterns linked to another feeling. The participants did recognize that there was something off about these images, even if they couldn’t put their finger on what, and were able to clearly determine when the expression of a certain emotion was well matched with the color pattern linked to that emotion.
Building on these findings, the researchers then developed a computer algorithm that could register human emotion based on facial color. The computer turned out to be more accurate than humans in this regard, with an accuracy rate of 90 percent for happiness, 85 percent for various emotions related to happiness, 80 percent for anger, 75 percent for sadness, 70 percent for fear, and just 65 percent for “fearfully disgusted.”
The study’s findings are in keeping with many idioms in the English language that connect facial color with emotion, such as “green with envy,” “blushing bride,” or “argue till you’re blue in the face.” The investigators found, for example, that a blue-yellow cast around the lips and a red-green cast around the nose and forehead indicate disgust.
This study may also help explain why it’s so difficult for actors to convey emotion convincingly. While it may be easy enough to deliberately manipulate facial muscles to convey a certain emotion, if the blood flow in the face doesn’t match, such a face may ring untrue.
The study authors hope their research will prove useful to the fields of cognition, computer science, neuroscience and the study of human evolution. They are in the process of patenting their findings in hopes they will form the basis of future artificial intelligence that can recognize and emulate human emotion.
Sources: (1) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180319155736.htm; (2) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/03/16/1716084115
#FacialColor #FacialExpression #AI #inTech #Pharmative
At first blush, you look happy -- or sad, or angry: We can read each other's emotions from surprisingly tiny changes in facial color, study finds
sciencedaily.com
Our faces broadcast our feelings in living color -- even when we don't move a muscle. That's the conclusion of a groundbreaking study into human expressions of emotion, which found that people are able to correctly identify other people's feelings up to 75 percent of the time -- based solely on subtle shifts in blood flow color around the nose, eyebrows, cheeks or chin.