Boring conversation? Accessories that decipher emotional cues could save your social life – or reveal that you're a jerk
ROSALIND PICARD'S eyes were wide open. I couldn't blame her. We were sitting in her office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and my questions were stunningly incisive. In fact, I began to suspect that I must be one of the savviest journalists she had ever met.
Then Picard handed me a pair of special glasses. The instant I put them on I discovered that I had got it all terribly wrong. That look of admiration, I realised, was actually confusion and disagreement. Worse, she was bored out of her mind. I became privy to this knowledge because a little voice was whispering in my ear through a headphone attached to the glasses. It told me that Picard was "confused" or "disagreeing". All the while, a red light built into the specs was blinking above my right eye to warn me to stop talking. It was as though I had developed an extra sense.The glasses can send me this information thanks to a built-in camera linked to software that analyses Picard's facial expressions. They're just one example of a number of "social X-ray specs" that are set to transform how we interact with each other. By sensing emotions that we would otherwise miss, these technologies can thwart disastrous social gaffes and help us understand each other better. Some companies are already wiring up their employees with the technology, to help them improve how they communicate with customers. Our emotional intelligence is about to be boosted, but are we ready to broadcast feelings we might rather keep private?
We project many subtle facial expressions that mirror our feelings. In the 1970s, US psychologist Paul Ekman identified a basic set of seven: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, contempt and surprise. They became the foundation for a theory of lie detection, which posited that involuntary micro-expressions can briefly unmask deception before the liar restores a facade of honesty to their face. Though the theory was later debunked, the principle wasn't entirely unsound.
In conversation, we pantomime certain emotions that act as social lubricants. We unconsciously nod to signal that we are following the other person's train of thought, for example, or squint a bit to indicate that we are losing track. Many of these signals can be misinterpreted - sometimes because different cultures have their own specific signals.
More often, we fail to spot them altogether. During a face-to-face conversation, thousands of tiny indicators on a person's face - arching the brow, puckering or parting the lips - add up to a series of non-verbal hints that augment our verbal communication. Blink, and you'll miss them.
The idea that technology could amplify these signals was first explored by Rana el Kaliouby at the University of Cambridge, UK. She wanted to help autistic people, who find it particularly hard to pick up on other people's emotions.
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