Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Facial Expressions in Dharun Ravi Verdict

Many of you have likely heard the story of former Rutger’s student Dharun Ravi.

Ravi, 20, was recently found guilty of a hate crime today for using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi. Clementi’s case gained national attention when he committed suicide shortly after the spying by jumping off the George Washington Bridge Sept. 22, 2010.

Last week Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, witness tampering and hindering arrest, stemming from his role in activating the webcam to peek at Clementi’s date with a man in the dorm room on Sept. 19, 2010. Ravi was also convicted of encouraging others to spy during a second date, on Sept. 21, 2010, and intimidating Clementi for being gay.

According to ABC News, three of the convictions carry a sentence of five to 10 years in prison. Because Ravi is a citizen of India, and is in the U.S. on a green card, he could be deported following his sentencing.

Take a look at the video  below while the verdicts to various counts were being read. Ravi mostly has a stoic expression on his face, except for some expressions of surprise to the jury’s decision on certain counts.

What do you see?

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Children with Sleep Disordered Breathing Prone to Emotional Problems?

Children A new study conducted by researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, suggests that young children who have Sleep Disordered Breathing (SDB) are more likely to develop behavioral problems including hyperactivity and aggressiveness.

PsyhCentral reports that this study is the largest of its kind and found that the disorder peaks in children between the ages of 2-6 years.  The main symptoms of SDB  include snoring and sleep apnea and the primary causes of SDB are enlarged tonsils or adenoids.

Lead researcher Karen Bonuck, Ph.D. purported , “This is the strongest evidence to date that snoring, mouth breathing, and apnea (abnormally long pauses in breathing during sleep) can have serious behavioral and social-emotional consequences for children.”

Parents filled out a questionnaire when their child was around four to seven years of age.  This Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire is widely used to access behavior and rates for inattention and hyperactivity as well as emotional symptoms , peer difficulty and behavior problems.

A pertinent question would be if the study took in to consideration other factors for behavioral problems , and the answer is yes.  The study accounted for 15 additional factors such as socioeconomic status, maternal smoking during pregnancy and low birth-weight.

“We found that children with sleep-disordered breathing were from 40 to 100 percent more likely to develop neurobehavioral problems by age 7, compared with children without breathing problems,” said Bonuck.  “The biggest increase was in hyperactivity, but we saw significant increases across all five behavioral measures.”

Researchers suggest that SDB triggers behavioral problems by harming the brain with a decrease in oxygen levels; therefore, an increase in carbon dioxide levels in the prefrontal cortex, which interrupts the restorative process of sleep.

Guess the Microexpression

Can you find the micro facial expression of emotion in the video below?

A microexpression is an emotional response that often occurs without our conscious awareness and reveals a person’s internal state. It is interesting to see it in an advertising campaign ad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Take a look at this Faceology article on analytical interviewing.  Page three goes into more depth about this particular ad.

Maggie Pazian writes “We do not and cannot exactly know the cause of the microexpression without engaging Dr. Tendler [the woman in the video above] in conversation and probing into the topic that appears to have spurred the emotional reaction but there is still important information that we can glean from seeing a microexpression.

As a side note, the emotion of disgust (as seen in the video above) is one of the seven basic emotions. To learn more about disgust, take a look at this blog article on disgust and disease.

What are your thoughts on this ad as well as microexpression in general?