Why are you smiling? In a strategic context, people´s affective responses reflect the meaning of android´s facial expressions

Facial expressions play an important role in human emotional communication. Observers´ reactions to facial expressions can be simple (e.g., smiling to a smile). However, they can also reflect the contextual meaning of an expression (e.g., smiling to an opponent´s frown). Our current study provides evidence for contextual modulation of human responses to facial expressions of a hyper-realistic android. Such modulation occurred when human participants engaged in a strategic game with or against a facially expressive robot. These findings suggest a high level of sophistication in facial communication between humans and robots that can be utilized in future robot design to promote natural social rapport with their users.