Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

FEAR- Is It Really Mind Over Matter?

“The only thing we have to fear is Fear itself”, Franklin D. Roosevelt (inaugural speech, 1933).

Fear can be a motivator or a crippling disease that keeps one from trying something new or difficult.  Most of us can explain the emotion of fear, can recognize the facial expression of fear and can recount a time when they have personally experienced fear.

But how does fear really work?

Most of us have at one time or another experienced, what society has linguistically termed,  fear. But biologically speaking how does fear make us act the way it does?  According to  io9.com: neuroscience , science knows how our brains process fear, but all the neural underpinnings of fear still remain a mystery.

Fear is one of the seven scientifically proven universal facial expressions of emotion.  The universal trigger of fear is a threat to one’s well-being.  The brain processes fear with the amygdala, almond-shaped clusters of neurons deep in our medial temporal lobes.

It has long been believed that the amygdala played a role in processing fear, how big a role had been undetermined until now.  A 1939 study revealed that removing the temporal lobes entirely (this includes the amygdala and connective fiber tissues within the lobes) made primates more tame, less aggressive and less responsive to fearful situations.

In another study in 1952, it was discovered that taking out only the amygdalae had the same effect of the disappearance of fear.  However, there has not been any revealing evidence of the effect of such a procedure on a human.

The ever increasing advancements in technology have allowed science to delve deep into the brain and focus on particular regions without causing collateral damage to adjoining regions of the brain.  In their review, “Neuropsychology of Fear and Loathing”, published in the journal Nature neuroscentists Andrew Calder, Andrew Lawrence and Andrew Young made observations about the the scientific strides in understanding the processing power of the amygdala and fear in the human brain.  They attribute advancements such as the fMRI for the ability to safely probe deeper into certain portions of the brain without damaging other portions.

The most popular human case study has shown that there is quite a difference between perceiving fear and having the ability to experience fear via brain signals (i.e. fight or flight response).  It was recently published, in January of 2011, and conducted on a human with Urbach-Wiethe disease (renders her amygdala useless).  The study revealed that the amygdala is a pivotal area in the brain for triggering (experiencing) fear.

What are your thoughts on fear?

Some people like to experience mild fear (just look at Halloween thrill seekers) and some people can’t stand the idea of being frightened, even if it is only a fleeting emotion.

What would you do if you couldn’t experience fear?  Would that be a bad thing or would that perhaps be beneficial?

Why Laughter is Such Good Medicine

The New York Times reports on why laughing is so good for us.

Although laughter seems like a relative simple concept, the effect it has on our bodies is anything but simple.  Research has shown that laughing more can make us happier (overall), slimmer, and healthier.

“Laughter is an early mechanism to bond social groups,” Dr. Robin Dunbar,  an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford said. “Primates use it.”  He suggests that it is not the intellectual pleasure of humor but the physical act of laughing that is beneficial.  The muscle movements involved in laughing cause the brain to produce endorphins and that causes us to feel good.  Endorphins are pain relievers and stress reducers.

Dunbar and his colleagues tested resistance to pain in five sets of laboratory studies and one field study at comedy performances.  The studies results, which are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, provided an answer to the conundrum of whether we laugh because we feel giddy or we feel giddy because we laugh.  They also showed that the resistance to pain was not the result of an overall well-being but was from actual laughter.

There is a suggestion that social laughing was originally a part of social grooming, which promotes closeness in a group.  “Panting is the sound of rough-and-tumble play,” Dr. Provine said of primate play. It becomes a “ritualization” of the sound of play. And in the course of the evolution of human beings, he suggests, “Pant, pant becomes ha, ha.”

Dr. Dunbar agrees and purports that laughter may have been favored by evolution because it helped bring human groups together, the way other activities like dancing and singing do.

The Future of Finance

Technology, technology, technology, everywhere you turn you are inundated with the advancements of our ever growing world.

According to CreditCards.com the future of banking has arrived.  Just like with the advancements on the iPhone and computers, ATM’s have launched into the technology race.  We now have 3D touchless ATM’s.  The idea was created by Brazilian Itartec and was first revealed in Sao Paulo, Brazil this past summer.

The new ATM accustomed with 3D technology and a completely touch-free interface allows the user to navigate with the swipe of the hand.  It also comes equipped with Face Tracking, which could virtually eliminate card/cash jacking.  A camera in the ATM will focus in on your facial features to identify you.  This type of technology is already in place as a security measure in a variety of industries and could eliminate the global need for ATM cards.

Other security ideas being developed for the ATM of the future is a “pillar” type design that uses your fingerprint to read  the biometrics under your skin and detect your body’s personal chemistry to identify you.  The “pillar” ATM is being designed more for underdeveloped, illiterate countries and icons will replace the now used keyboard and display screen.

Industry veteran Bob Tramontano, vice president of marketing at NCR, comments, “I don’t think holograms are ready for prime time as far as the technology is concerned,” says Tramontano. “but I think gesture-based interaction is something that will be very appropriate in the near to distant future.”

This new technology provides greater security for ATM users and for banks. It will be harder, with this technology in place, to force someone to withdrawal cash or to try and hijack the entire cash dispenser.

There are other prototypes that are focusing on a myriad of divergent security measures such as a built in audio lie detector and replacing the traditional moneygram to ones that can be sent via the internet right from the ATM machine itself.

There is also a cash into gold machine coined “Gold to Go”.  Just visit the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas to see how this one works.

For detailed information on ATMs of the future watch the Youtube video below (it’s in Portuguese but the video shows how the technology works).

Click here to view the embedded video.