If you’re surrounded by smiling faces, you’re more likely to feel happy than if everyone around you is looking glum. But we know relatively little about how emotions spread from one person to another.
The Chameleon Project, a collaboration between artist Tina Gonsalves – currently in residence at the MIT Media Lab – and neuroscientists could help. The installation involves using face recognition software that analyses a person’s expression as they walk into a room and shows them a video portrait of another person displaying a related emotion.
The project employs an algorithm developed by neuroscientist Chris Frith from University College London that tries to read and respond to the emotions of a person in the same way another person would.
That algorithm builds on research that suggests that when we interact with someone, we try to reach a neutral emotional state where communication can occur more easily. People tend to mirror the expression of someone who is happy or scared, but try to calm down someone who is angry.
As well as producing a unique art installation, the Chameleon Project should provide neuroscientists with new insight into how people respond to less-studied emotions such as anger. The underlying technology could be used with little modification for research into empathy – for example, investigating how people with mental illnesses like autism and schizophrenia respond to the emotions of people around them.
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