抄録
We have been developing training systems using engineering technologies including voice processing, image processing, and electromyogram measurements, among others, for people with communication difficulties including those with developmental disorders. These training systems are designed to improve their communication skills, and they included voice training for improving the clarity of the voice and emotional expressions, and training in making facial expressions for expressing emotions, among others. Facial expressions play an important role in smooth communication by conveying one's intentions. Moreover, it is necessary to have the skills of synchronizing one's facial expressions with that of others especially when feeling empathy for another person. Skills of synchronizing facial expressions include skills of recognizing others' facial expressions and those of creating one's own facial expressions. We have conducted investigations based on the perspective that when conducting training related to facial expression synchronization it is important to examine abilities for both recognizing and creating facial expressions. This paper describes indices of facial expression synchronization skills developed by us. In an experiment conducted by Otte et al., happy and angry faces were shown to participants as stimuli and they were required to respond with happy or angry faces respectively. It was indicated that the response time differed depending on combinations of facial expressions used in the stimulus and the response. We assessed the response time to an expressionless face as the baseline response time. Then, we defined the effect of generating shorter response times than the baseline when stimulus and response facial expressions were consistent, as a promoting effect, and the effect of generating longer response times when stimulus and response facial expressions were inconsistent, as an inhibitory effect. Furthermore, the time differences from the baseline were defined as indices of the degree of promotion and the degree of inhibition. The results of investigating promoting and inhibitory effects are reported.
