A Robot Learns the Facial Expressions Recognition and Face/Non-face Discrimination Through an Imitation Game

In this paper, we show that a robotic system can learn online to recognize facial expressions without having a teaching signal associating a facial expression with a given abstract label (e.g., ‘sadness’, ‘happiness’). Moreover, we show that recognizing a face from a non-face can be accomplished autonomously if we imagine that learning to recognize a face occurs after learning to recognize a facial expression, and not the opposite, as it is classically considered. In these experiments, the robot is considered as a baby because we want to understand how the baby can develop some abilities autonomously. We model, test and analyze cognitive abilities through robotic experiments. Our starting point was a mathematical model showing that, if the baby uses a sensory motor architecture for the recognition of a facial expression, then the parents must imitate the baby’s facial expression to allow the online learning. Here, a first series of robotic experiments shows that a simple neural network model can control a robot head and can learn online to recognize the facial expressions of the human partner if he/she imitates the robot’s prototypical facial expressions (the system is not using a model of the face nor a framing system). A second architecture using the rhythm of the interaction first allows a robust learning of the facial expressions without face tracking and next performs the learning involved in face recognition. Our more striking conclusion is that, for infants, learning to recognize a face could be more complex than recognizing a facial expression. Consequently, we emphasize the importance of the emotional resonance as a mechanism to ensure the dynamical coupling between individuals, allowing the learning of increasingly complex tasks.