Comparing an android head with its digital twin regarding the dynamic expression of emotions

TL;DR

This study compares emotional expression recognition between a real android head and its digital twin, finding most emotions are recognized similarly except for surprise, which shows perceptual differences.

Contribution

It introduces a digital replica of an android head to evaluate perceptual differences in emotional expression recognition.

Findings

All emotions except fear were recognized on the real head.

The digital head performed better than the real head for most emotions.

Significant differences were only found in the representation of surprise.

Abstract

Emotions, which are an important component of social interaction, can be studied with the help of android robots and their appearance, which is as similar to humans as possible. The production and customization of android robots is expensive and time-consuming, so it may be practical to use a digital replica. In order to investigate whether there are any perceptual differences in terms of emotions based on the difference in appearance, a robot head was digitally replicated. In an experiment, the basic emotions evaluated in a preliminary study were compared in three conditions and then statistically analyzed. It was found that apart from fear, all emotions were recognized on the real robot head. The digital head with "ideal" emotions performed better than the real head apart from the anger representation, which offers optimization potential for the real head. Contrary to expectations, significant differences between the real and the replicated head with the same emotions could only be found in the representation of surprise.