- [Narrator] There are a lot of us
all with different cultures, languages, beliefs.
So, yeah. Communication.
It's not always easy.
- You're crazy
(slapping)
- [Narrator] But no matter where we come from
or the languages we speak
by using these,
we can still connect with other humans.
And now maybe with them too.
- There are so many purposes of facial expressions.
I'm David Matsumoto.
I'm a Professor of Psychology
at San Francisco State University,
and I'm also director of Humintell.
The face is one of the most complex signal systems
we have in the body.
And it serves many purposes.
For example, when we wrinkle our nose in disgust like this,
not only is it communicating something to you
who can perceive my expression,
what is also doing is
clamping down a little bit on those nasal passages.
It's preventing things from coming into my body,
through my nasal passage.
- [Narrator] Facial expressions also communicate
to the people around us.
One of the biggest advocates for this theory,
Charles Darwin.
- [David] Darwin posited that all humans have emotions.
It allows us to act immediately
with minimal conscious thinking or awareness.
And then on top of that,
we add these expressions
so that we could communicate that reaction
to others as well
and that helped the group to survive.
- [Narrator] Because of this,
Darwin believed our expressions were
universal.
- So in psychology today,
there is widespread agreement
that seven facial expressions of emotion
are universally recognized all around the world,
regardless of race, color, creed, nationality, gender,
any demographic that exists.
They are
anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness,
and surprise.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] So this means as humans,
we can talk to each other,
even without words
(dramatic music)
But can facial expressions
help us connect with human-like technology?
- So the robot is a way to understand human self, for me.
By creating the very human-like robot
I believe that we can get some knowledge about the humans.
My name is Hiroshi Ishiguro.
I'm a roboticist.
What I could learn through the robots
so many things, right?
We are trying to develop interacting robots with humans.
(dramatic music)
And we're studying the how the human
can interact with the robots.
So in order to develop that kind of a robot
the first facial expressions
and the gazing directions
gazing control of the robot is so very important.
So robot needs to represent the emotions
and intelligence in many ways.
We have totally different cultures
between United States and in Japan,
but I know that we understand emotional expression.
There is no doubt emotional facial expressions
is a very important way of communication.
So therefore the facial expression is very important
for android and for having the communication with human.
- [Robot] Hello,
My name is Erica.
- [Robot] Meet Erica.
- I think Erica is the most human like android in the world.
Erica can have a kind of a natural conversation
with the visitors.
Maybe the five or 10 minutes.
We are implementing the, maybe just major
the facial expression with Erica.
Happy,
- It's all very exciting
- Angry.
- I'm done talking to you,
please don't come speak with me again.
- And it's sad and depressed.
(foreign language)
- So Android can have their communications
by exchanging the facial expressions
even if android doesn't understand the language.
- There are so many great applications for these robots.
Whether it's helping the elderly, guiding tourists
or even for entertainment.
It's all very exciting.
Oh, sorry about that.
I got a little carried away.
- [Narrator] By designing robots to have facial expressions,
humans could more easily connect with them
and incorporate them into our lives.
- It's just really interesting because
we use our faces to reference many different mental states.
- By expressing the facial expression.
Even if we don't understand our language to each other,
we can the share some information.
- And because of that facial expressions of emotion are
the closest thing we have to a universal language.
They allow us to share emotions with each other.
They allow us to share the time
when we laugh together or cry together.
If there's anything out there,
they're the single most important vehicle
that we have that can bring us all together.
(upbeat music)