Can Machine Learning Guess True Emotions From Facial Microexpressions? (cmu.edu)

jbmartin6 writes: Microexpressions are fast, involuntary facial expressions which other people may not consciously recognize, but arise from our real emotions instead of the face we wish to present to the world. Carnegie Mellon University released an interesting blog entry about new approaches to using computers to recognize these microexpressions with a focus on the security and military applications. If you haven't taped over the cameras on your devices, it might be time to start thinking about it. Just imagine how advertisers would (mis)use this sort of technology.
"Our approach uses machine learning features that treat the whole face as a canvas," writes the lead researcher, adding "One challenge we faced for this project was finding a dataset with accurately labeled data to establish ground truth.

"Few existing databases capture subjects' suppressed reactions...."

Comments

Perhaps a bit, but...

[RyanFenton]

Here's the thing about emotions. They don't mean what you'd expect. Emotions ARE logic to an extent - short-circuited logic, quicker and made with incomplete information. They're the quick-and-dirty half-logic that makes us able to function in a world of unknowns for millions of years as a species.

They aren't 'serious business' - they're formed and dismissed in fractions of a second, and most of them don't trigger facial emotions - and even then a raised eyebrow muscle can mean confusion, pronounced indifference, mild surprise, or just positioning to move your eyeball, or many other things.

Like most things, this ain't mindreading - it's just more polygraph logic being applied, ironically like emotion itself is applied - for the basis of 'asperational truth', or bullshit they hope might pan out.

Ryan Fenton