2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Sensing emotion in humans by using a response in facial skin blood flow

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24650352
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Rehabilitation science/Welfare engineering
Research Institution	Tokyo Institute of Technology (2013) Kyushu University (2012)
Principal Investigator	HAYASHI Naoyuki 東京工業大学, 社会理工学研究科, 教授 (80273720)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	FUKUBA Yoshiyuki 県立広島大学, 人間文化学部, 教授 (00165309)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	情動 / 皮膚血流 / ヒト
Research Abstract	We supposed that face and facial color are related to various emotions, since there are many expressions of language using face. Then we tested the hypothesis that facial skin blood flow shows specific response to emotion. Subjects watched videos evoking happiness, sadness, fear, astonishing and fear, then we measured facial skin blood flow. No specific response was obtained in skin blood flow in forehead, nose, cheek and lips. The results may suggested a difficulty judging one's emotion from facial skin blood flow responses as yet. It should be necessary to use stronger stimulus evoking a change in emotion, if we can.