Emotion, Technology, Lies: OH MY!!

Emotion is a very important piece of human interaction.  All people have the ability to display both basic emotions (ie. happiness, sadness, anger, etc.) and complex emotions (ie. jealousy, pride, embarrassment, etc.).  Our emotions shape how we react to different situations and how we handle different challenges.  

These figures show the same 8 basic emotions.  Each emotion, although not totally the same due to individual differences, share similar facial features.  This allows us to distinguish between emotions.

As shown in the images above, all humans display the same facial features when feeling a certain emotion.  For example, when we are surprised, every person initially opens their mouth and bulges their eyes.  As a species, we all react similarly when feeling a certain way.  To make more sense of this phenomenon, Bio Motion Lab has created a prototype of a human using virtual laser pointers.  In the simulation, the user can change different traits, such as gender, weight, and mood of the human on a spectrum, and see how the body language changes.  This prototype shows that humans share very similar body language to express their feelings.

The prototype simulation starts off neutral and allows the user to place the human on different parts of each spectrum.

The way we respond to emotional stimuli helps to differentiate between people.  Some people can be honest and express their emotions, and others block off and even sometimes lie, depending on the circumstance.  It is scary to think that most people can lie to someone's face without being caught. Humans are able to exaggerate and blatantly lie about anything without facing any consequences because the lie is not detected.  Humans lie because they do not want to face a punishment for something we did wrong.  Sometimes we lie to get out of an accidental situation, but other times we engage in premeditated actions and plan on lying from the get-go.  Regardless, we are a very gullible species and tend to believe most of the things we hear.  

Wouldn't it be nice if people were like Pinocchio, and their noses grew a little every time they lied?  I know that having that trait would make the lives of the law enforcement much easier.  Unfortunately, nothing is that simple, and law enforcers have different tactics to detect lies.  In Dr. Paul Ekman's video, Three Ways to Catch a Liar, he explains that people can lie using words, but their body indicators are really what tell the truth.  He states that the most useful method in detecting a lie is by analyzing microexpressions.  These expressions only last for about 1/25 of a second, and if the microexpression doesn't match the statement, then that person is concealing an emotion.  Although this doesn't determine that the person is lying, there is a good indicator that they are hiding something.  A second thing to notice is a person's body language.  Specifically, nodding has been seen to contradict words time and time again without the person even realizing their movements.  Dr. Ekman has been using these tactics to learn more about human emotions while helping law enforcers, including FBI and CIA agents.

Dr. Ekman and television series "Lie To Me" members point out different microexpressions found in each basic emotion, making it easier to detect what the subject is actually feeling.

Back home, a friend of mine was having issues with her computer, so she took it to tech support to get it fixed.  After many virus scans and restarts, the technician began to check for any hardware issues, and found that the webcam on the computer was turned on.  After checking all of the running applications and closing them all out, he noticed that the webcam seemed to still be running.  After toying around with the computer some more, they realized that someone had hacked into her webcam and had been watching her whenever she was using her laptop.  Furthermore, the hackers were able to deactivate the light that turns on with the webcam so she wouldn't know it was on while activating the microphone.  In short, the hackers were able to watch and listen to everything she said in front of her computer without her knowing.  Clearly, they did not have her consent, and knowing this, I constantly keep a piece of paper taped over my own webcam.

The point is that technology is rapidly expanding in ways that most people are unaware of.  When we are online, our every move is getting tracked.  Now, there are forms of technology that can detect our emotions when we are not surfing the internet.   Not only can the software inspect our inner thoughts, but hardware is becoming another source of emotion tracking.  There seems to be no end in sight of massive surveillance issued by the government. Newer technology that is able to identify your name just by looking at your face is beginning to be distributed world wide.  Even scarier, future technology will also have the ability to detect our emotions.  These technologies will have "emotion sensors," and although they won't know what exactly triggered an emotion, they will know what emotion we are experiencing at that time.  These companies have no guidelines to follow regarding consent and notification to use face recognizers and faceprints. Soon enough, people are going to lose all personal privacy that they have, and that is terrifying to me.

Technology is also slowly destroying interpersonal connections in the real world. People are less likely to communicate with someone face-to-face, and turn to technology because it is simple and faster.  Humans are becoming so heavily reliant on technology that we panic when we are without it.  We sometimes even begin to isolate ourselves from the real world, and begin to replace our personal relationships with cyber friends.  These addictive behaviors destroy our emotional functions.  On one social blogging sight, Tumblr, bloggers are constantly posting about wanting to sit online rather than interact with people.  Whether this is an ongoing joke or not, social media and technological advances are beginning to inhibit our ability to function outside of the cyber realm.

A typical Tumblr blog post.

Emotional interactions are vital for human existence.  Many people find their reason for existance through objects or experiences. If we didn't have any sense of attachment or emotion, negative feelings like emotional pain, envy, and hatred would not exist, but neither would positive emotions, such as joy and contentment. Therefore, life would have no logical reason to continue other than to simply and instinctually exist because there would be no motivation. However, if we continue to deny ourselves from obtaining the full human experience by wasting our time in front of a screen (that is monitoring us!!!) our emotions will begin to lose their importance in our lives.