The color of smiling: computational synaesthesia of facial expressions
This work addresses a foundational challenge in affective computing for natural interaction systems, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing concepts like the Information Bottleneck principle.
The paper tackles the problem of transcoding between different stimuli, such as mapping facial expressions to colors for affective computing, by framing it within an information-theoretic perspective and proposing a latent affective space as a mediator.
This note gives a preliminary account of the transcoding or rechanneling problem between different stimuli as it is of interest for the natural interaction or affective computing fields. By the consideration of a simple example, namely the color response of an affective lamp to a sensed facial expression, we frame the problem within an information- theoretic perspective. A full justification in terms of the Information Bottleneck principle promotes a latent affective space, hitherto surmised as an appealing and intuitive solution, as a suitable mediator between the different stimuli.