At the Meiji University lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust.
Hooked up to a database of words clustered by association, the robot Kansei (sensibility) responds to "war" by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears "love" and it smiles.
"To live among people, robots need to handle complex social tasks," said project leader Junichi Takeno. "Robots will need to work with emotions, to understand and eventually feel them."