Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Dr. Matsumoto’s Radio Interview – “View Point” with Ellen Shehadeh

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Photo courtesy of StockVault

Listen to Humintell director’s radio interview on facial expressions, emotions, & culture on 90.5 FM’s “View Point” with Ellen Shehadeh.

“Faces are special because they communicate specific information about our emotional states as well as sometimes our thoughts and our feelings,“ Dr. Matsumoto pointed out.

He comments on an investigators duty when trying to evaluate truthfulness:

“That’s why being able to read microexpressions as well as all the other non-verbal as well as the verbal indicators are aids for an investigator to then follow-up because the follow-up and how you follow-up and what you’re gonna say and the content that you’re gonna explore whether you’re an investigator or psychotherapist or physician, or lawyer that’s the other very important half of the equation of being able to use these kinds of indicators.“

He goes on to talk about the difference between micro and macro facial expressions specifically the microexpression of fear:

“Now having said that [quote above] I believe that the dynamics of the expressions are gonna be different.  For example if you’re walking into an airport and you’re showing fear, you could be afraid of being caught because you’re carrying some contraband…or you could be afraid of the fact that you forgot where you parked your car or whether you turned off your lights in the garage…so the fact that you’re afraid doesn’t tell you which one that is [what reason you are displaying fear for], but I do believe that if you’re afraid of being caught you’re gonna be more likely to hide your fear. Whereas if you’re afraid that you forgot to turn off the lights in your car you’re not gonna be that afraid of wanting to hide that [type of] fear.  So, the fear is gonna look different and that’s the difference between micro expressions [trying to conceal the fact that you are afraid] and macro expressions…“

 For more information or to listen to the entire interview visit KWMR 90.5 FM.

Babies Laughter Explained

You may have seen the video below, of a baby laughing hysterically, on YouTube but do you know why such a simple act is so funny to the baby?

In this video brought to us by the Discovery Channel, Dr. Alan Sroufe fills us in on the joke.

According to Dr. Sroufe, babies begin to laugh at around 4 months old and are usually in hysterics over things that are physically vigorous.  Older babies, however, laugh at things that are a little more complex.  Here the baby finds the ripping of the paper so funny because it’s not something she would normally see.  In the video,  Dr. Sroufe states that “Most things that make babies laugh when they are older are these incongruities.”

For more information on babies and their emotional and physical growth you can read our past blogs, “Baby Face” and “Face Development in the Womb“

Click here to view the embedded video.

Learning via Facial Expressions

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Photo courtesy StockVault

In our electronic era online tutoring and even degrees are becoming more and more reputable and sought after.  A few years ago this type of learning was thought to be less beneficial than the traditional classroom/teacher setting.

Is it just as effective to learn online as it is in the classroom?

New software has been developed that aims at bridging the gaps between human interaction and technology.

Researchers at North Carolina State University  have created a new program coined “JavaTutor” that tracks how students feel as well as the effectiveness of online courses via facial expressions.

With growing classroom sizes (in both college and grammar school) and a variety of skill levels in each class, many teachers have a difficult time delineating which students are really getting the material and which are lost.  This new technology could alleviate that problem for online schools, tutoring companies and regular classrooms by acclimating learning and online courses to the lifestyle of today’s youth.

Are online courses more acclimated to today’s youth’s life styles ? – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/?p=25938&preview=true#sthash.wwlaMfjy.dpuf
Are online courses more acclimated to today’s youth’s life styles ? – See more at: http://www.humintell.com/?p=25938&preview=true#sthash.wwlaMfjy.dpuf

PsychCentral reported that 65 college students were tracked using this automated Computer Expression Recognition Toolbox (CERT) to evaluate their facial expressions as they were engaged in a one-on-one online tutoring session.  The students were tested before and after each tutoring session as well as asked their feedback on how effective they felt the tutorial was as well as how much they learned.

“The program, JavaTutor, will not only respond to what a student knows, but to each student’s feelings of frustration or engagement.  This is important because research shows that student emotion plays an important role in the learning process.”

Data from CERT as well as student assessments and test scores were used in creating models to predict how effective a tutoring session was based on the student’s facial expressions that indicated feeling’s of frustration or engagement.

MIT Technology Review also commented that ‘this hints at what could prove to be a broader revolution in the application of emotion-sensing technology.  Computers and other devices that identify and respond to emotion—a field of research known as “affective computing”—are starting to emerge from academia.’

The Computerized Expression Recognition Toolbox (CERT) was able to identify facial movements associated with learning-centered emotions, such as frustration or concentration and the automated program’s findings were consistent with expert human assessments more than 85% of the time.

Co-author of the study Kristy Boyer, Ph. D. noted, “This work is part of a larger effort to develop artificial intelligence software to teach students computer science.”

If JavaTutor technology proves to be effective for online tutoring sessions this could have huge implications for schools across the nation.  Many schools fall short of test score expectations and as a result of that they are labeld Title 1 schools and must offer their students free tutoring sessions that are paid for by the state.

If this software engages and teaches material effectively it could replace expensive tutors throughout the nation and have a huge impact on middle schools, high schools, adult education as well as college courses.

What do You Think of Online Tutoring/College Courses? Can they be just as effective as teacher/classroom instruction?