Facial Expressions and Gestures to Convey Emotions with a Humanoid Robot

This paper presents the results of a perceptual study with ZECA (Zeno Engaging Children with Autism), a robot able to display facial expressions. ZECA is a robotic tool used to study human-robot interactions with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This study describes the first steps towards this goal. Facial expressions and gestures conveying emotions such as sadness, happiness, or surprise are displayed by the robot. The design of the facial expressions based on action units is presented. The participants answered a questionnaire intended to verify if these expressions with or without gestures were recognized as such in the corresponding video. Results show that participants were successfully able to recognize the emotion featured in the corresponding video, and the gestures were a valuable addition to the recognition.