Neil: Hello. This is 6 Minute English, I'm Neil.
Sam: And I'm Sam.
Neil: It’s good to see you again, Sam
Sam: Really?
Neil: Yes, of course, can’t you tell by the
way I’m smiling?
Sam: Ah well, I find it difficult to tell if
someone is really smiling or if it’s a fake
smile.
Neil: Well, that’s a coincidence because
this programme is all about how
computers may be able tell real smiles
from fake smiles better than humans can.
Before we get in to that though, a
question. The expressions we can
make with our face are controlled by
muscles. How many muscles do we have
in our face? Is it:
A: 26, B: 43 or C: 62?
What do you think, Sam?
Sam: No idea! But a lot, I’d guess, so I’m
going with 62.
Neil: OK. Well, we’ll see if you’ll be smiling
or crying later in the programme.
Hassan Ugail is a professor of visual
computing at the University of Bradford.
He’s been working on getting computers
to be able to recognise human emotions
from the expressions on our
face. Here he is speaking on the BBC
Inside Science radio programme – how
successful does he say they have been?
Professor Hassan Ugail: We've been
working quite a lot on the human
emotions, so the idea is how the facial
muscle movement, which is reflected on
the face, through obviously a computer
through video frames and trying to
understand how these muscle
movements actually relate to facial
expressions and then from facial
expressions trying to understand the
emotions or to infer the emotions. And
they have been quite successful
in doing that. We have software that can
actually look at somebody's face in real
time and then identify the series of
emotions that person
is expressing in real time as well.
Neil: So, have they been successful in
getting computers to identify emotions?
Sam: Yes, he says they’ve been quite
successful, and what’s interesting is that
he says that the computers can do it in
'real time'. This means that there’s no
delay. They don’t have to stop and analyse
the data, or crunch the numbers, they can
do it as the person is talking.
Neil: The system uses video to analyse a
person’s expressions and can then infer
the emotions.
'To infer something' means to get an
understanding of something without
actually being told directly.
So, you look at available information and
use your understanding and knowledge to
work out the meaning.
Sam: It’s a bit like being a detective, isn’t
it? You look at the clues and infer what
happened even if you don’t have all the
details.
Neil: Yes, and in this case the computer
looks at how the movement of muscles in
the face or 'facial muscles', show different
emotions. Here’s Professor Ugail again.
Professor Hassan Ugail: We've been
working quite a lot on the human
emotions so the idea is how the facial
muscle movement, which is reflected on
the face, through obviously a computer
through video frames and trying to
understand how these
muscle movements actually relate to
facial expressions and then from facial
expressions trying to understand the
emotions or to infer the emotions. And
they have been quite successful
in doing that. We have software that can
actually look at somebody's face in real
time and then identify the series of
emotions that person is expressing in real
time as well.
Neil: So, how do the computers know
what is a real or a fake smile? The
computers have to learn
that first. Here’s Professor Ugail again
talking about how they do that.
Professor Hassan Ugail: We have a data
set of real smiles and we have
a data set of fake smiles. These real
smiles are induced smiles in a lab. So,
you put somebody on a chair and then
show some funny movies
and we expect the smiles are genuine
smiles.
And similarly we ask them to pretend to
smile. So, these are what you'd call fake
smiles.
So, what we do is we throw these into the
machine and then the machine figures
out what are the characteristics of a real
smile and what are the characteristics of
a fake smile.
Neil: So, how do they get the data that the
computers use to see if your smile is fake
or 'genuine' – which is another word which
means real?
Sam: They induce real smiles in the lab by
showing people funny films. This means
that they make the smiles come naturally.
They assume that the smiles while
watching the funny films are genuine.
Neil: And then they ask the people to
pretend to smile and the computer
programme now has a database of real
and fake smiles and is able
to figure out which is which.
Sam: 'Figure out' means to calculate and
come to an answer
Neil: Yes, and apparently the system gets
it right 90% of the time, which is much
higher than we humans can. Right, well
before we remind ourselves of our
vocabulary, let’s get the answer to the
question. How many muscles do
we have in our face? Is it:
A: 26, B: 43 or C: 62.
Sam, are you going to be smiling?
What did you say?
Sam: So I thought 62! Am I smiling, Neil?
Neil: Sadly you are not, you are using
different muscles for that sort of sad
look! Actually the answer is 43.
Congratulations to anyone
who got that right. Now our vocabulary.
Sam: Yes – 'facial' is the adjective relating
to face.
Neil: Then we had 'infer'. This verb means
to understand something even when you
don’t have all the information, and you
come to this understanding
based on your experience and knowledge,
or in the case of a computer, the
programming.
Sam: And these computers work in 'real
time', which means that there’s no delay
and they can tell a fake smile from a
'genuine' one, which means a real one, as
the person is speaking.
Neil: They made people smile, or as the
Professor said, they 'induced' smiles by
showing funny films.
Sam: And the computer is able to 'figure
out', or calculate, whether the smile is fake
or genuine.
Neil: OK, thank you, Sam. That’s all from
6 Minute English today. We look forward
to your company next time and if you
can’t wait you can find lots more from
bbclearningenglish online,
on social media and on our app. Goodbye!
Sam: Bye!