Some people seem to have taken to heart the urban myth that 93% of communication is non-verbal, to the extent that they will largely ignore actual words.

If you have frequent mis-mappings between your internal state and facial expression, such people will often discount such important sentences as "It's really good to see you", or "Please stop that, it's distressing and angering me."... because, in their eyes, your facial expressions and other non-verbal cues contradict your words.

So, imagine an animatronic dog mask, with voice-recognition software which would use your words to drive appropriate facial expressions, and vocalisations, in the dog mask. The dog face would be cute when your words indicated that you wanted acceptance, and slightly scary, with growls, when your words indicated that you wanted more space.

Of course, the original words would be muffled by the mask itself and by the growling and whining, but when you wanted to have a non-phatic conversation with a serious person, you could activate a ticker-tape which would unroll a transcript from your collar.

You would want one of the more anthropomorphic breeds of dog, with high foreheads, like the golden retriever. A mastiff mask would be more impressive if you wanted people to keep their distance, but it would dribble on your tie.

Of course you could use an animatronic human face, but that would just be creepy.
-- pertinax, Nov 22 2009

origin of the myth http://bodylanguage...-body-language.html
[pertinax, Nov 22 2009]

Does it come with a pre-wetted animatronic tongue that I can use to show my affection?
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 22 2009


I'd like to say 'yes', but licking would usually require full-body (or at least upper-body) movement, and your shoulders, arms and paws have not been given cute doggy proxies. So no, sorry.
-- pertinax, Nov 23 2009



random, halfbakery