FaceShare

Abstract

"Mirroring" refers to the unconscious mimicry of another person's behaviors, such as their facial expressions. Mirroring has many positive effects, such as enhancing closeness and improving the flow of a conversation, which enriches the quality of communication. Our study set out to devise a means of evoking these positive effects in a video chat without any conscious effort of participants. We constructed a videophone system, called FaceShare, which can deform the user's face into a smile in response to their partner's smiling. That is, our system generates mirroring by producing a pseudo-smile through image processing. We conducted an experiment in which pairs of participants had brief conversations via FaceShare. The results implied that mirroring using the pseudo-smile lets the mimicker, whose face is deformed according to the expressions of their partner, feel a closeness, and improves the flow of the conversation for both the mimicker and the mimickee, who sees the mimicker's deformed face.