Investigation of the exhibition of facial expressions within human computer interaction

This paper describes research which was conducted to determine if humans exhibit facial expressions while interacting with a computer system. Fourteen college-aged subjects were chosen for the experiment. The subjects included 3 Hispanics and 11 Caucasians. Six of the subjects´ were female. Each of these subjects performed five computer-based tasks which were chosen to simulate a wide range of typical applications; one of these tasks was a baseline. The subject´s facial expressions were videotaped and later analyzed using the Ekman and Friesen Facial Action Coding System. The analysis revealed that the subjects did indeed exhibit facial expressions; an analysis of variance showed a significant difference between task types. In addition, an ethological analysis revealed a surprising number of facial expression maskings.