From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Exactly what I mean by "unattached"..
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 05:47:19 GMT

In article <BsxC0F.5A9@news.udel.edu> zagar@chester.cms.udel.edu writes:
>In article 13642@nuchat.sccsi.com, kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>
>> [trygve writes:]
>> > Trouble is, I get the feeling that how hard you're looking is getting in
>> > the way of being able to see.  You don't really need to concentrate on
>> > how others feel--people seem to have a built-in degree of empathy that
>>>lets them pick up on how others are feeling pretty much from birth.  
>>
>>*I* don't have any such ability.
>>
>
>Sorry Kevin, but I don't believe that for a minute !  There are HUGE chunks of
>the brain set aside for things like recognizing faces and recognizing/interpreting
>facial expressions.  Unless, of course, your brain *really* *is* different...

See my latest posting on the subject.  The evidence says that my brain *is*
different, at least to a degree.

>Unless you believe in ESP for the masses, 

I don't believe in ESP for anything.  Watching people read other people *does*
look like magic to me, but I realize that it isn't.

>then you have to grant that all of our
>information on anothers' emotional state come from non-verbal clues like facial
>expression and body language.

Definitely.

>It's certainly possible that you might not be *using* the ability or you might
>not recognize that the ability is there but I don't think you have the option
>of not *having* such an ability.

My pattern recognition abilities are relatively weak.  This has always been
the case.  I compensate a great deal via conscious thought, but it's a much
slower process.

Don't get me wrong.  I *do* have the ability to recognize things, and can
distinguish between things that are fairly similar *if* they're placed
side by side so that I can compare them.

However, if such an ability is there, I can't get to it.

I can recognize certain basic facial configurations and associate emotions
with those configurations, but each such configuration has a unique and
easily identifiable "signature".  Usually, there are unique physical
indicators which are highly visible.  Tears, for example, generally indicate
that one is upset.  A frown generally indicates unhappiness of some sort.
The configuration of the person's forehead is then the indicator for which
type of unhappiness (anger or sadness) is involved.

I don't have problems detecting *basic* emotions, because the cues are
well-defined and highly visible.  I *do* have trouble (read: I find
impossible) identifying *subtle* cues.  These things do *not* have
obvious physical indicators.  For one thing, they are very much context-
sensitive.  For another thing, they're not universal.  Worse still,
they're very ambiguous.

If you can teach a computer to recognize the subtleties, then you might
have a shot at being able to teach me to recognize them, too.  You can
probably teach a computer to recognize the basic emotions just like I
do.  You probably won't be able to teach a computer to recognize the
subtleties, though (I won't say it's impossible :-).

>>>Fortunately, there's no reason you can't start learning to pick up on
>>>how others are feeling--the world provides you with a handy reference
>>>called "humanity" that can be easilly located almost anywhere in the
>>>world.
>>
>>Umm...exactly how are you supposed to use the thing you're trying to learn
>>about as a reference?
>>
>>I observe an object, but don't know what it is.  How is observing the object
>>supposed to tell me what the object is, unless I have something to compare
>>my observations against?
>>
>
>Okay, go grab your frisbee and on the next sunny day go to a park, play frisbee,
>and watch kids.  Watch all of them.  Watch their faces.  They're the easiest to
>interpret.  Kids aren't as adept at concealing feelings as adults are.

Right.  They display emotions in obvious ways, just like you say here.  I
don't have problems with those.  I have problems with the subtleties.

It's not limited to faces and the like.  I have the same sorts of trouble
with the subtleties of language.  If someone says something that has
subtle implications, I won't catch it, even if most other people do.  For
instance, I can't tell when someone else is deadpanning, period, unless I
am aware that they're talking about an area in which they are knowledgeable
and in which they would not make a mistake like that, or I know ahead of
time that the environment is one of jest.  Most other people are able to
tell.  I don't know how.

>-RZ


-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com