Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Lie To Me

Humanity has been programmed to believe that lying is unnatural and bad.  While it can be very harmful, is it really unnatural?  Human beings lie all the time.

Take a look at the video “Necessary Lies” with writer and orator Ian Leslie.  It was reported on in Wired and delineates the myths about lying, gives surprising statistics and insightful commentary on human as well as primate manipulability and predictability.

“Lying isn’t a bug in the human software [but] is a defining characteristic of our species and fundamental to all human societies,” Leslie purports.  He goes on to note that we [individuals] believe our own lies to be harmless white lies and simultaneously see other people’s lies as terrible, harmful and even malicious.

His insights come from research and discussions with psychologists, neuroscientists as well as anthropologists.

Leslie makes the bold statement that no society can function without lying and lies.  He even suggests that they are necessary and in some cases desirable.  He points out that according to social scientists; lying and truth telling exist in equilibrium.

What do you think about Leslie’s points? Do you agree?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Negative Emotion Enhances Memory?

Negative emotions actually enhance a person’s memory.  Who would have thought that it was all the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elms street movies that we watched after school that would make us the geniuses we are today?  Well, it turns out it just might be according to an article in The Behavioral Medicine Report .

Bridgid Finn, PhD, researcher in psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, purports, “Memory is labile and dynamic – after you retrieve something, you’re still engaged in processing that information in some way.  We’ve established that the period after retrieval is key in retaining information.”

Finn states that learning is enhanced by (negative) emotion.  Researchers did three different types of tests to examine their hypothesis.  In the initial study, which was published in the June 2011 issue of Psychology Science, 40 students were tested and showed that the process involved in retrieving an item does not end when that item is retrieved.   The experiment revealed that participants did best on items that had been followed by negative pictures.

Why is this and does this work with positive images and memory?  So far research has suggested that positive images do not enhance a person’s memory.  Scientists find that a negative picture can enhance later retention due to the close relationship between areas (amygdala and hippocampus) involved in  negative emotion and remembering.

A second experiment was designed to explore the limits of the enhancement effect.   “…the students continue to process the information during the two second pause,” Finn says.  The third and final study involved 61 students and was intended to rule out the possibility that arousing images simply made certain pairs of words seem more distinct; therefore, easier to remember.

“For negative emotion to enhance later retention of something, this experiment shows that you have to retrieve that information,” Finn states. “That is, you have to go get it. In the absence of retrieval, the negative pictures do not enhance later performance. That’s critical.”

What are your thoughts on this study?  What applications of this study do you see in the future?

Related articles

Shock and recall: Negative emotion may enhance memory, study finds (eurekalert.org)

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Face of the Future!

IBTimes-New York has just reported that Facebook is just about to introduce its new mood recognition app.

Face.com a face detection and recognition service has just introduced Facebook to its new facial recognition technology.

They have announced the release of their new mood recognition API (for those of you who are not techies, application programming interface).   This new “mood detector” has only five categories in which to place a person:  Happy, Sad, Surprised, Angry and Neutral.

So what happened to frustrated, confused or plain sleepy?

Don’t fret too much; this technology is only being applied to your photos.  They don’t tag your face when you log on.  Facebook reports that their photo feature is their most popular feature;  1 billion photos are uploaded each month!

How long will it be until technology tracts not only your every move but your every emotion as well?  Is it just a matter of time?

Glimpse into the future:  All computers have cameras that automatically start recording when they are accessed.  Everyone will know everything about you when you use the internet (and lets face it who NEVER uses the internet).   If you showered, what your wearing, who your with and so on.

The industry of facial recognition technology is booming.   This app can be compared to Apple’s iPhoto and Google’s Picasa.

What do you think about all these facial/mood recognition devices?

It’s one thing to be able to tell who is in a picture and quite another to discern what that person is feeling or possibly displaying.  As one reader suggested its a slippery slope.