Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Fetal Facial Expressions

Many people have heard of the endearing term ‘baby face”.  New scientific findings reveal that facial expressions begin even earlier than with newborn babies.  Science suggests that complex combinations associated with recognizable facial expressions occur as a fetus develops in the womb.

This new study reported on by LiveScience shows that as a fetus develops their facial expressions become very complex and can be recognized as combinations associated with known facial expressions.

Does this reinforce the universality of the seven basic facial expressions of emotion?  Well, more research needs to be conducted to confirm that but it is interesting.

Lead researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, Nadja Reissland noted that these facial expression don’t necessarily mean that the fetuses were experiencing emotion, “We can see the expressions which we can recognize; we can’t say whether the fetus has emotion.  They have yet the cognition necessary to have the emotions.”

The study, which appeared in August in the journal PLoS ONE, used 4-D ultrasound images to track the facial motions, and it’s main focus was on expressions of crying and laughing.  However, Reissland is looking into future research on additional facial expression of emotion such as anger and sadness.

Related articles

Facial Expressions Develop in the Womb (livescience.com)

Enhanced by Zemanta

Truthfulness Detection

Lie detection equipment in airports is old news, but the use of thermal imaging cameras and powerful software to covertly spot potential deception is not.

An undisclosed airport in Britain is implementing this new technology that keeps an unwitting eye on people entering the country by scanning passengers for signs of truthfulness.

Mail Online News has reported on Britain’s new security defense.  This covert operation, if you will, could be used at passport control stations and in customs interview rooms.  The “new” deception detection tool has a greater advantage than the current tools such as electronic body scanners and metal detectors because it is being implemented without the knowledge of the person in question.

This device reads tiny changes in facial expressions such as eye movement and micro facial expressions that have corresponding reactions in the brain, which cause changes in the patterns of blood flow around the face.  The changes in blood flow to the face are picked up by thermal imaging cameras.  These “truthfulness” measurements can prove to be useful not only in airports but in a variety of places such as schools and business conferences.

The system’s designer Hassan Ugail, a professor of visual computing at the University of Bradford, commented on this software, ‘In an interview you can be talking to a person, then you basically just press a computer button and say:  “Was this person lying or not?”’

Detecting deception with just a click of the button can be misleading.  What do you think about this type of software?  Do “real” people also need to be trained to understand the nuances of human behavior for this to be a double edged sword for criminals?

Professor Ugail goes on to state, “What we try to do is experiment with the face itself, but it is purely non-invasive, which means the person is probably not aware the measurements are being taken.”

This system is still being developed but Ugail and his colleagues have claimed a 60-70 percent success rate.

What are your thoughts on this non-invasive lie detection technology?

Read My FACE

MSNBC has reported on the vast utilization of facial recognition software.

Many of the technological advances in facial recognition have been implemented by law enforcement for a while.  Now thanks to the worldwide internet and the amazing speed of technological advancements, useful technology is being shared with the average Joe.

New software is now able to match up perceptions with a person’s mood or intent.  The scientists involved with this new software experimented with different degrees of expressions to see how sensitive the program could be in capturing and interpreting facial expressions.

The study concludes that “Dominant” and “Threatening” expressions exhibit the highest and most consistent scores for all classification rules with accuracy higher than 77% for all the classifiers. Being able to recognize when a person is getting really angry is not only beneficial to law enforcement but to the individual walking down the street as well.

The benefit of these types of programs were delineated by the scientists, “The understanding of the social value of objects, including faces, requires the development of engaging interactive systems that act in socially meaningful ways.  For this purpose, analysis of facial images has become a major research topic with clear multidisciplinary implications.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Enhanced by Zemanta