Soma}News – March/April – Part 1

A round-up of soma-related emotion research and connections to facial expression, pain management, body in space and technology. Plus two upsides of sadness.

OLED displays show images of eyes that reflect engagement and emotion.

Facial Expression

The “eyes” will track and follow the person being spoken to, giving the illusion of attention. The wearer can be looking elsewhere, or have their eyes closed.

Emotional Cyborg: these new glasses show emotion so you don’t have to. It’s striking how emotion is perceived mainly as in the eyes for Asian culture. A western one is being developed for the mouth area.This video is worth a watch, for comedy value... and more here. 

Facial appearance and expression effect perception of intelligence. Why my square-chinned younger sister is more clever than she looks.

• Emotion detectors could make driving safer – until the self-driving car arrives
• Computer software analysing facial expressions accurately predicts student test performance
• Gif database to help distinguish expressions – using popular culture references.
• Computer maps 21 distinct emotional expressions – even ‘happily disgusted’
• Humans might be using facial expressions of determination as a call for help from others
• Researchers have found that even basic human emotions are in fact not universally perceived. Uh oh, I hope this doesn’t effect other facial expression research conclusions.

Pain

Pain Management: visualising a safe place reduces procedural pain “Patients told us that visualising their own safe place during the procedure made them feel involved and helped them cope with pain and anxiety. Before the intervention patients were anxious and afraid of being on the operating table for a long time but afterwards they said visualisation had made it seem short and that it was a positive and pleasant experience.” – Mrs Nørgaard

• Computers see through faked expressions of pain better than people – watch out Italian soccer players!
• Twitter users describe real-time migraine agony
• Painful memories: here’s a better way to deal with them – try this at home.
• Sensory nerve endings – ow!! now we say “You just hit a Merkel Cell!”

The Body in Space

• Location matters when it comes to deal-making “Geographic location is a managerial lever … You can’t force people to work with one another. But you can make them share a bathroom, or pass one another in the hall.” – Prof. Liu. – Pixar’s opportunity to say “I told you so”.
• Uncovering a new angle on mental distance: Feeling closer leads to poor judgement of space “Strangers who were coming towards participants were thought to be more similar to themselves than when those same strangers were headed away.” – interesting potential in stealth marketing.
• Proprioceptive feedback helps rehab patients learning to operate robotic prosthetic
• Exploring how memories are laid down in the brain with google maps metaphor and a study with rats
• What we see linked to what we do: spatial self-awareness combines visual cues with body motion. 

Technology

• Android-powered wearables
• Hmm, I’ve lost interest in following through with Reporter App: maybe I need to find more interesting questions?! Here’s a critique 

Sadness

• Sadness makes us seem nobler, more elegant, more adult – ‘the beautiful sorrow of things’ 
• It can also help us lose weight…

via Brainpickings, Science Daily, Spring, Nature Neuroscience, MIT, Aeon, BBC News, The Verge, bygonebureau.