Robot Assisted Smile Recovery

Abstract

1.1 Facial Expressions Facial expressions play a significant role in social information exchange and the physical and psychological makeup of a person because they are an essential method for non-verbal communication. Through facial expressions, human beings can show emotions, moods and information about their character. Happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, and anger, are typically identified by psychologists as basic emotions with their corresponding characteristic facial expressions (Wang and Ahuja; 2003). Further, (Batty and Taylor; 2003) reported that humans have a very fast processing speed when it comes to identifying these six expressions and noted that positive expressions (e.g. happiness, surprise) are identified faster than the negative expressions (e.g. sadness, disgust). Human beings share common characteristics in the way they express emotions through facial expressions which are independent from nationality, ethnicity, age or sex. It has been recorded that the ability to recognize the corresponding emotion in a facial expression is innate and is present very early, possibly form birth (Mandler et al.; 1997). However there is also evidence that universal expressions might be modified in social situations to create the impression of culture-specific facial expression of emotions. For example, (Ekman; 1992) noted that when an authority figure was present, the Japanese masked negative expressions with the semblance of a smile more than the Americans. If, because of accident or illness, a person looses the ability to make facial expressions this makes the face seem emotionless and leads to physical and psychological hardships.