{"id":320761,"date":"2020-03-06T05:54:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T05:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=320761"},"modified":"2020-03-06T05:54:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T05:54:19","slug":"dont-take-a-person-only-at-face-value-says-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/dont-take-a-person-only-at-face-value-says-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t take a person only at face value, says study"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Noted poet dramatist William Shakespeare in the sixteenth century penned in Macbeth, \u201cAppearances can be deceptive\u201d and in the Merchant of Venice went on to say for the first time, \u201call that glitters is not gold\u201d meaning thereby that it would be folly to take a person(s) only at the face value.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now centuries later, in an interesting study, researchers have found that <\/span>facial expressions don\u2019t tell the whole story and warn of drawing too-quick conclusion only on the basis of a person\u2019s face.<\/span><\/p>\n

On February 16, 2020, Ohio State <\/span>University released results of a research that indicated that facial expressions are not a sure way to know what the person has in mind. Trusting people only on the basis of Interacting with other people are almost always a game of reading cues and volleying back. We think a smile conveys happiness, so we offer a smile in return. We think a frown shows sadness, and maybe we attempt to cheer that <\/span>person up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some businesses are even working on technology to determine customer satisfaction through facial expressions.\u00a0 But facial expressions might not be reliable indicators of emotion, research indicates. In fact, it might be more accurate to say we should never trust a person\u2019s face, new research suggests.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe question we really asked is: \u2018Can we truly detect emotion from facial <\/span>articulations?\u2019\u201d Science Daily quoted Aleix Martinez, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University, as saying. \u201cAnd the basic conclusion is, no, you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Martinez, whose work has focused on building computer algorithms that analyze facial expressions, and his colleagues, presented their findings (Feb. 16, 2020) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers analyzed the kinetics of muscle movement in the human face and compared those muscle movements with a person\u2019s emotions. They found that attempts to detect or define emotions based on a person\u2019s facial expressions were almost always wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone makes different facial <\/span>expressions based on context and cultural background,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s important to realize that not everyone who smiles is happy. Not everyone who is happy smiles. I would even go to the <\/span>extreme of saying most people who <\/span>do not smile are not necessarily unhappy. And if you are happy for a whole day, <\/span>you don\u2019t go walking down the street with a smile on your face. You\u2019re just happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It is also true, Martinez said, that sometimes; people smile out of an obligation to the social norms. This would not inherently be a problem, he said \u2014 people are certainly entitled to put on a smile for the rest of the world \u2014 but some companies have begun developing technology to recognize facial muscle movements and assign emotion or intent to those movements. The research group that presented at AAAS analyzed some of those technologies and, Martinez said, largely found them lacking.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome claim they can detect whether someone is guilty of a crime or not, or whether a student is paying attention in class, or whether a customer is satisfied after a purchase,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat our research showed is that those claims are complete baloney. There\u2019s no way you can determine those things. And worse, it can be dangerous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The danger, Martinez said, lies in the possibility of missing the real emotion or intent in another person, and then making decisions about that person\u2019s future or abilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, consider a classroom <\/span>environment, and a teacher who assumes that a student is not paying attention <\/span>because of the expression on the student\u2019s face. The teacher might expect the student to smile and nod along if the <\/span>student is paying attention. But maybe that student, for reasons the teacher doesn\u2019t understand \u2014 cultural reasons, perhaps, or contextual ones \u2014 is listening intently, but not smiling at all. It would be, Martinez argues, wrong for the teacher to dismiss that student because of the student\u2019s facial expressions.<\/span><\/p>\n

After analyzing data about facial <\/span>expressions and emotion, the research team \u2014 which included scientists from Northeastern University, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin \u2014 concluded that it takes more than expressions to correctly detect emotion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facial color, for example, can help provide clues. \u201cWhat we showed is that when you experience emotion, your brain releases peptides \u2014 mostly hormones \u2014 that change the blood flow and blood composition, and because the face is inundated with these peptides, it changes color,\u201d Martinez said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The human body offers other hints, too, he said: body posture, for example. And context plays a crucial role as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one experiment, Martinez showed study participants a picture cropped to display just a man\u2019s face. The man\u2019s mouth is open in an apparent scream; his face is bright red.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people looked at it, they <\/span>would think, wow, this guy is super <\/span>annoyed, or really mad at something, that he\u2019s angry and shouting,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cBut when participants saw the whole image, they saw that it was a <\/span>soccer player who was celebrating a goal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In context, it\u2019s clear the man is very happy. But isolate his face, Martinez said, and he appears almost dangerous. Cultural biases play a role, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the U.S., we tend to smile a lot,\u201d <\/span>Martinez said. \u201cWe are just being friendly. But in other cultures, that means different things \u2014 in some cultures, if <\/span>you walked around the supermarket smiling at everyone, you might get smacked.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Martinez said the research group\u2019s findings could indicate that people \u2014 from hiring managers to professors to criminal justice experts \u2014 should consider more than just a facial expression when they evaluate another person.<\/span><\/p>\n

And while Martinez said he is \u201ca big believer\u201d in developing computer algorithms that try to understand social cues and the intent of a person, he added that two things are important to know about that technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne is you are never going to get 100 percent accuracy,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the second is that deciphering a person\u2019s <\/span>intent goes beyond their facial expression, and it\u2019s important that people \u2014 and the computer algorithms they create \u2014 understand that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

letters@tehelka.com<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noted poet dramatist William Shakespeare in the sixteenth century penned in Macbeth, \u201cAppearances can be deceptive\u201d and in the Merchant of Venice went on to say for the first time, \u201call that glitters is not gold\u201d meaning thereby that it would be folly to take a person(s) only at the face value. Now centuries later, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":320773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[12719,12720],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320761"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320775,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320761\/revisions\/320775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/320773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}