Perhaps that accounts for the figures' lifelike expressions – straining necks, lolling tongues, flared nostrils.
So realistic are his figures, with their veined, wrinkled, hairy skin and lifelike expressions and body language, that you might almost converse with them.
That detailed knowledge of facial expression has earned Dr. Ekman, 69, a supporting role in the movie industry, where he has consulted with animators from Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic to give lifelike expressions to cartoon characters.
The virtual child can also speak in a recorded child's voice and even uses lifelike expressions and gestures.
As Pinocchio is moved out of the room, guided by four puppeteers and Mak Wilson at the monitor moving his face, his movements look jerky and stylized, before you realize that despite the almost lifelike expressions, it is after all a puppet.
Some of the latest robots even look like humans – as seen with the mimetic Yangyang, who comes complete with lifelike facial expressions.
The robot has stunned the world since her creation in 2015, appearing on chat shows and at technology conferences and wowing audiences with her wit and lifelike facial expressions.
The animatronic Lincoln, incorporating cutting-edge technology that gives the mechanical man nuanced, lifelike facial expressions and lip movements, first premiered debuted at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.
Using a "replacement" technique, which switches the lower half of the puppets' faces frame by frame, Anomalisa is populated by players whose bodies seem lifelike but whose expressions resemble moving masks, with everyone but Michael and Lisa eerily cast from the same mould.
"They are so lifelike, they look like photographs," she said.
For increased realism, professional camera operators helped with the motion capture, and Samus' face had a more detailed frame to make expressions more lifelike.
