A curled lip, a furrowed brow—sometimes even a small change in expression can reveal far more than words. We all like to think we can read people's faces for signs of their true emotions. Now, a computer program can analyze images of faces as accurately as trained professionals.

What's more, it does so faster. Working frame by frame, the most proficient human experts take an hour to code the 1,800 frames contained in one minute of video images, a job that the computer program does in only five minutes. continued...

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
May 2001, pages 12-17.
©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute