What's in a face?

[Shardrol]

I started a new topic & moved this to the Worldly Matters forum since it doesn't have much to do with philosophy.

There's a difference between the vacant, has an IQ not much above some of the mentally retarded clients I used to take care of and the inhuman psychopath.

Certainly. What I was getting at was the idea that it is possible to read faces quite accurately & that this is something we do usually below the level of consciousness so we just sense it as intuition (i.e. "he gives me the creeps").

This website shows you photographs & asks you to decide whether the subject is an inventor of a programming language or a serial killer.

This website shows people smiling & asks you to decide whether their smiles are real or faked.

As far as the kid in the video trying to look dumb, there is only so much difference a person can make. I just did an example round, just for you. This morning, here I am not trying to look like anything as a baseline shot, here I am trying to look like I'm paying attention for one end of the intentional spectrum, and here I am trying to look vacant (the other end of the spectrum of intent). In comparison, here is one of the shots I took when people were talking about putting actual faces up as our avatars. I was dead tired after a streak of insomnia, and didn't want to post that because I thought I looked too slutty. Only so much vacancy can be faked, and the rest reflects an empty head.

I agree that you look much the same in all of the pictures you posted but I think this is something particular about you. The way I see it is your face shows great fear/anger & sadness & this dominates any expression you may impose on it. This isn't true for all people. In fact it's possible for actors to be entirely convincing in becoming a character who is different from themselves. I'm not an actor (I just play one on the internet) but about 20 years ago I took a picture of myself every day at noon for 100 days. If you looked at all the photos together you wouldn't even think they were all of the same person.

I should add that if I did that today, there would probably be a lot more consistency of appearance. I think younger people are more varied in their expressions.
.

[Katy]

I used to do some substitute teaching with 12-13 year olds... believe me, you can tell by their faces and posture who is or isn't paying attention. Primarily, you have to look at the corner of their eyes because people who are paying attention will use those muscles. Another thing to look at is the tension in the jaw. They're subtle differences, but they do exist. Also which way the eyes are looking may help (unless it's something logical like "at the board") based on whether they're looking up and right (remembering) or up and left (creating stories)

Also, being tired probably affects how you look. I know it does me.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

I got 8/10 on the serial killer one (misidentified one serial killer, and one programmer - both I couldn't see the eyes well) and 11/20 on the real/fake smiles (about evenly misidentified real or fake, about evenly wrong for males or females). The smiles site states:

Most people are surprisingly bad at spotting fake smiles. One possible explanation for this is that it may be easier for people to get along if they don't always know what others are really feeling.

I can see where there is more of an evolutionary advantage to spotting a serial killer than a fake smile, and similarly I can see where it would be an evolutionary benefit to see how intelligent a person actually is. It seems that one would prefer to pass one's genes on in conjunction with a mate of good intelligence.

The tests seem to actually support what I said about expressions not being able to hide the underlying state (in the case I cited - vacancy).

I agree that younger people have a lot more variance in their manifestation from moment to moment. I developed a fairly unusual handwriting because my handwriting was so varied that it looked like the product of multiple people. One teacher once remarked that if she had not seen for herself that I wrote that whole page in her class, she would have sworn 5 different people wrote it. Even with the new structure of handwriting, my handwriting varied - yet it all became distinctly mine (I only know of 2 others who ever wrote like I do). Today though, my handwriting does not particularly vary.

I also agree that being tired affect appearance, as does drunkenness and other mind-altering states - but that is the point. Although various expressions can probably be faked with convincing results, one can only change one's reflection of their inner state to a certain degree. Good actors accomplish this by "getting into the role" and actually changing their mindset. They actually feel the emotions to some degree by letting loose of their own mind enough to become the paintbrush for the script.

The way I see it is your face shows great fear/anger & sadness

I am almost never angry, and I don't perceive any sadness in myself today. PTSD is classified as an anxiety disorder, but I don't feel particularly frightened much of the time. I guess I'm always what one would consider "on edge" (just a day or so ago I was in Wal-Mart, and an employee set down a ladder loudly, and I let out another of my infamous blood-curdling shrieks. I didn't feel scared, it was just a bodily reflex), but I'm so used to this state that I don't usually note it. It's just my usual state of being. When I can channel that adrenaline into universal love, it's better - but I'm not quite back at that state yet very often, and even when I have been in that state, sometimes people accuse me of having the "deer in the headlights look." Although one can perceive some things about another, it seems they can't necessarily tell what the other perceives his/her state to be. As another example, DHodges once mentioned that sometimes people say he looks sad when he does not feel sad.
.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

The way I see it is your face shows great fear/anger & sadness

Hehe, I guess I'm a bit more relaxed after the stock market closestoo (again in that shot, I'm not trying to look like anything). Again, it's what's really going on inside rather than an attempt to look a particular way.
.

[Jamesh]

11/20 on the real/fake smiles

I got 16/20. Interestingly I go 4 in a row wrong.

7/10 on the serial killers v programmers - didn't feel confident though. Some of the older photos almost seemed pre-computers.

[Shardrol]

Hmmm. I got 10/10 on the programmers vs serial killers & 18/20 on the smiles. Maybe I pay unusual attention to these things.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

didn't feel confident though. Some of the older photos almost seemed pre-computers.

Yeah, that contributed to my confusion on one of them - I even thought he looked more like a computer programmer, but the photo seemed pre-computers.
.

[Jamesh]

Shadrol (I know what Elisabeth does)

What sort of work do you do -does it involve a lot of face to face situations where you have to make judgements about people?

I looked at your profile to see if you mentioned anything
"Interests: flowers, bunnies, diamonds, CEOs"

Interesting group, the first three are quite feminine and the fourth masculine and potentially related - is your interest in CEO's one of making personal judgements about them, or is it about getting behavioural clues that would assist a desire you may have to become a CEO?

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

I looked at your profile to see if you mentioned anything
"Interests: flowers, bunnies, diamonds, CEOs"

That has to be a joke (including the CEOs) as those sorts of things are what the QRS accuse all women of only being interested in.
.

[Jamesh]

Not necessarily

I personally a somewhat like flowers, bunnies - so this could be classed as positive interest, though not strong - while I am most curious about the minds of some CEOs, so again this is interest but more on the mental level rather than the emotional one. Diamonds are not emotionally interesting - but I do like the physical attributes of diamonds - hardness, scarity, clearness - they are an interesting form.

[Tomas]

Hmmm. I got 10/10 on the programmers vs serial killers & 18/20 on the smiles. Maybe I pay unusual attention to these things.

i used to love animals... now i eat them

[Shardrol]

Sorry, Jamesh, Elizabeth is right: it was humor. The CEOs were meant to be the source for the diamonds & flowers. Bunnies are just in there cause they're so cute.

I think you both missed some things on those tests because you were trying to intellectualize & use reason when it's actually a purely visual & intuitive task. You have an intuition as to whether it's a serial killer or an inventor of a computer language but then you override it with the thought that the picture looks like it came from before the age of computers.

Jamesh, as long as we're chatting for the first time, I thought I'd ask you: is your name James H or Jamesh rhyming with Marrakesh?
.

[Jamesh]

It is James Hayes.

I do like the sound of Jamesh though, better than my old nick of jimhaz.

[Katy]

hmm 16/20 on the smiles - every one that I missed was male.
7/10 on the serial killers. The three I missed were the only ones I took more than a second to judge.