Seeing into the mind in the twinkle of a smile

Although conversation is vital in our social life, it is not easy for people to fully understand what others are feeling. As an initial step towards solving this problem, we proposed the world’s first computational model for estimating observers’ perceptions of empathy/antipathy between a pair of interlocutors based on the interlocutors’ behavior; while most previous studies targeted only a single person. We further proposed inferring how differently a crowd of observers perceive interlocutors’ emotions. This makes it possible to handle emotions, which are basically ambiguous, objectively and quantitatively. Our aim is to clarify the process by which emotions are expressed and perceived by others. This would be helpful for the development of remote communication systems, and for elucidating communication disorders.