Blogs / Discoblog

Scientists have managed to create quite possibly the most annoying robot ever. “Jules,” a disembodied robot head with a statistically perfect androgynous face, can instantly mimic the facial expressions of humans it sees through its video camera eyes. You smile, Jules smiles, you stare in surprise, Jules stares back in surprise, you scrunch up your nose in disgust, Jules…you get the idea.

Researchers at Hanson Robotics engineered Jules’s face with 34 internal motors masked by a skin-like rubber known as Frubber. Jules is programmed to understand ten different human emotions, including happiness, sadness, and concern, and to mirror these emotions with its intricate set of motor “muscles.” Jules also speaks in a male voice with a British accent, and can simulate verbal interactions complete with eye contact.

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Here’s one for the Holden Caulfields of the world: If you’re good at spotting fake smiles, you’ve probably been given the cold shoulder a lot in the past. Scientists at Miami University in Ohio found that the memory of social rejection makes a person more wary of phony goodwill.

The researchers enlisted 32 people and asked some to write down a situation in which they’d felt accepted, while others were asked to note a situation in which they’d felt excluded. A football player, for example, wrote about an injury that prevented him from playing, and the subsequent rejection he felt from his football buddies.

The subjects, now primed with either fuzzy feelings of acceptance or chilly feelings of rejection, were shown video clips of “happy” people. The acceptance group spotted fake smiles about 60 percent of the time, while the rejection group spotted them about 80 percent of the time.

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