PerformEyebrow: Design and Implementation of an Artificial Eyebrow Device Enabling Augmented Facial Expression

In communication, it is important to clearly convey one’s own emotions to others and to accurately read the emotions intended by others. There are two ways to communicate emotions: nonverbal information and verbal information. The psychologist Merhrabian argues that non-verbal information is more important than verbal information, and that visual information such as facial expressions and gestures play a major role in inferring emotions. However, there are times when our own emotions are not understood by others, leading to misunderstandings. In this study, we propose an artificial eyebrow shape control device, PerformEyebrow, which extends the wearer’s facial expression by presenting various eyebrow shapes. The eyebrows are drawn with thermochromic ink so that their shape can be changed dynamically. It takes about 9 s for the eyebrows of PerformEyebrow to change shape. In order to confirm the usefulness of the device as an expression enhancing device, we conducted an experiment to evaluate the impression made by eyebrow shape when the eyebrow shape was changed by wearing PerformEyebrow.