We have all seen the look on Leonardo da Vinci's very own Mona Lisa's face. Some might see a blank face. Some may see happiness, anger or even fear. A machine by the name of Facial Action Coding Systems (FACS) can tell you exactly how she feels. This new technology can even be valuable in the classroom.

This recently created software scans facial movements. It weighs the different units of expression. Although Mona Lisa is just a painting that doesn't move, she is compared to a neutral face. According to Prof. Thomas Huang and Prof. Nicu Sebe, researchers of FACS, "She's 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry."

It may seem unlikely that Dr. Paul Eckman, the creator of FACS, only uses "six basic emotions- happiness, surprise, anger, digust, fear and sadness", but when the computer constructs a 3-D model, it uses all 44 major muscles in the face.

Imagine making a certain facial expression and your computer screen magically changes its settings. In the future Dr. Huang predicts "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored. Then it could modify the lesson, like an effective human instructor". This could cause a dramatic postive change in test scores. Also not all students can gather information the same way. Students will want to know more if the information is grabbing their attention.

Allowing computers to scan information from facial expressions in the classroom setting can and will drive students to want to learn because of the personal format and reliablity.