Skin ‘reveals our emotional state’

Expressions such as “blue in the face”, “green around the gills” and “blushing bride” may be more than colourful descriptions.

New research suggests that subtle changes in facial skin colour speak volumes about our emotions.

And even though they may be too faint to register consciously, they flag up the feelings of others to aid social communication.

Study participants asked to “read” the emotions of neutral faces in photographs guessed correctly 75 per cent of the time, guided only by superimposed colour patterns.

Based on the findings, scientists developed computer programmes that could identify human emotions from facial colouring with 90 per cent accuracy.

In future, the algorithms could lead to sensitive artificially intelligent robots that respond to and mimic human emotions. Lead researcher Professor Aleix Martinez, from Ohio State University in the US, said: “We identified patterns of facial colouring that are unique to every emotion we studied.

“We believe these colour patterns are due to subtle changesinbloodfloworblood composition triggered by the central nervous system.

“Not only do we perceive these changes in facial colour, but we use them to correctly identify how other people are feeling, whether we do it consciously or not.”