As a student, has your learning process ever been impeded by your emotional state? Have you ever wished a teacher could read your mind? The article "Making Mona Lisa Smile" is about a new software system called the Facial Action Coding System which can detect emotions based on facial movements. Technology such as the Facial Action Coding Systems can be valuable in reading the emotional expressions of students in a classroom and sensing varying degrees of boredom, confusion, or sadness; this data can then be used to create better fit lessons for the students.

To begin, Prof. Thomas Huang and his team have been working to develop ways for robots to better communicate with people. The Facial Action Coding System, which calculates movement of all 44 major muscles on your face, was created. These movements can be used to classify happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness.

First, in a classtoom setting, this system could be used to detect whether a student is bored with a lesson plan. The lesson plan could then be changed. Next, the Facial Action Coding System could also be used to detect if a student is confused. This data could indicate that a student may need additional help with a lesson or an alternate lesson plan. Lastly, another emotion the Facial ACtion Coding System could help with is sadness. If the system dectects that a student is constantly sad, the school administration can look into this and verify that the student is emotionally stable.

For many students, a poor emotional state as well as confusion and boredom, impede their ability to learn in school. In a classroom setting, a Facial Action Coding System would be beneficial to detect a student's current emotion and adjust the lesson plan accordingly.