Dr Paul Ekman on emotions
Written on January 30, 2008
Today I attended a lecture by Dr. Paul Ekman (see also Wikipedia article) on the UC Berkeley campus. Dr. Ekman spoke about his early research showing the universality of facial expressions of emotion, then demonstrated a computer-based system for training people to recognize microexpressions (brief expressions that indicate concealed emotion), and discussed work in progress on facial expressions warning of dangerous intent.
He said “Emotions do not reveal their source,” so fear can be detected but not the reason, the target or the trigger for the emotion.
Something to look forward to next fall – a new book based on a dialog between Ekman and the Dalai Lama; I had written down the title as ‘Emotional Awareness’ but on his website the title is shown as ‘Steps Towards Emotional Balance’ (and not even at the pre-order stage on Amazon yet.)
Filed in: cognitive science,psychology.
