In 1976, an American space probe called Viking 1 took some photographs of Mars. Actually, the Mars area called Cydonia. And among those photographs was a photograph which became iconic, I guess. This is a photograph of a human face on the surface of Mars. And people were puzzled. Viking chief scientist, Gerry Soffen, his name was, he initially dismissed the face of Mars as a trick of light and shadow. However, there was a second image also showing the face which was acquired 35 orbits later, and at a totally different psi angle, and it looked like this. A face, once again. So people were puzzled. For about 20 years this was one of those mysteries nobody was able to solve. And 20 years later, the scientists at NASA were able to construct a composite image of the region taken by three different cameras, three different probes, with much better resolution. And Cydonia on Mars actually looks like this. And as you can see this is not a human face. At best, this is a lion's face, but it actually looks like some sort of a geological formation. Now, this ability, this tendency for humans to see faces everywhere is a phenomenon called pareidolia. We see faces everywhere. We see the face of God, I guess, in the clouds. We see this surprised electrical socket. This guy, I took a photograph on him somewhere on the train in Japan. Angry mop, coffee skull. I think you have seen your fair share of those things. Apparently, there's a brain area, Fusiform Gyrus it's called, which specializes in detecting human emotions. Because, apparently, human emotions are important as a major part of human social life. We need to be able to understand other people's emotions know how to react to them and know how they react to us. And as a concept which was pioneered by this gentleman, his name is Paul Ekman. He is one of the most famous psychologist of the 20th century. One of the most cited psychologists. And he spent quite some time in remote areas. In areas like Papua, New Guinea, talking to natives who had no contact with western civilization, trying to understand whether emotions were sort of biological or culturally defined. And what he did was, he was showing photographs of westerners to natives. And those photographs displayed this or that emotion. And he asked them to tell stories about this person. What would you imagine this person is going through? And natives told him stories about, well, maybe this person's child died because the photograph was very sad, the person on the photograph. So, he decided that, okay, emotions are universal, there are universal emotions. Of course, some emotions are, indeed, culturally defined, but there are basic emotions which are universal. So even if you are talking to a very foreign crowd, you still have this chance of maintaining contact, understanding their emotions, thinking. It's mostly both feelings, of course. And I don't know if you can see this photograph, but as this photograph is concerned, the feedback is totally not good. There's clearly lack of understanding. So there are seven or eight universal basic emotions. The first being sadness or worry, and we will know how it looks like, right? It's something like this. This part is important, the eyebrows. And if the person is thinking, most of the time it looks like he is sad. Unless he is fantasizing about something. But if he thinks, he displays sadness. Because, apparently, sadness, worry and thinking are very much related. Now anger, anger is about the jaw. Anger is tightening the jaw, sometimes pressing the jaw forward. And, of course, the eyebrows. Disgust. Disgust is a reaction to some biological filth, I guess. It's mostly about the nose. My God, the smell is bad. There's muscles around the nose contracting. This is disgusting. Contempt. Very close to disgust. Lots of people mix them together, but they're actually quite different because contempt is mostly social emotion, quite unlike disgust. Contempt is all about people. It's the smirk, mostly asymmetrical. It's I am better than them. Fear. Fear is, well, it's big mouth, big eyes, tightening of neck muscles. Surprise. Very close to fear. Once again, big eyes, open mouth, relaxed jaw, but this time no tightening of the neck. It's very difficult to differentiate between fear and surprise. So if you are mixing up, it's, well, I guess not a big problem. And finally, we have happiness, joy, right? And according to Paul Ekman, the true smile, the Duchenne smile, is not about just the mouth, but it's also about those little wrinkles. There are some muscles that tighten here. So look at those areas as well if you want to distinguish between fake smile and real smile. And finally, I don't know if that counts, but there's a neutral expression, and it's just nothing, no emotion whatsoever. I recommend you try those tests. Maybe some of them, maybe all of them. They assess your ability to differentiate between different emotions. And some people are better, some people are worse. When I first try one of those tests, I made I think eight out of 14, which isn't quite good. But on my last test I did ten out of ten. So at least my experience says that it's a skill, could be improved. However, if you have some, I don't know, incurable deficiency in this department, the science is there to help. This guy, his name I will not be able to reproduce. He's a professor at a University in China. He built a software, apparently, it's a Microsoft API. The software monitors only two emotions, the neutral emotion and the sadness. So, he knows when his students are sad he needs to change something. He needs a change in pace or maybe ask some questions. I don't know, I still prefer the old-school analog method. Just looking at people and asking them when in doubt. Surely, it eats a lot of your attention. But bright screen also eats a lot of your attention. So I don't know which method would work better for you. As far as I'm concerned, I still prefer looking at people. Now, I have to tell you that the concept of universal basic emotions is controversial. There's no scientific consensus around this. Some people say, well, okay, there's Paul Ekman's universal basic emotions. We will come up with our own concept of universal basic emotions. For example, Robet Plutchik, and there are other people as well. And it's beautiful. They have their own lists, they have their own ideas, there is no consensus. Margaret Mead, one of the most famous, I guess, anthropologist of the 20th century, to her death believed that emotions are mostly culturally defined. There are no universal emotions, she said. And there are people who say that there are no distinct emotions, it's all just huge non-discreet emotional field. You cannot really differentiate between sadness and joy, it's always a mix. The people are never in one clear state. And so it's like 75% disgust, 2% content and the rest is joy, maybe, possibly. I don't know, I don't care. All I know for use is the people are unique. Some people display a very wide variety of emotions, some people have very narrow bandwidth. And this is cool, too, by the way. It's not too important. The idea is to seek feedback, and at least try to understand it, and ask if in doubt. The only reason I do not endorsed Paul Ekman in any way. I'm very skeptical about his ability to detect lies, by the way. But he has tools that help paying attention. And for me, paying attention to the audience is really, really important. I think it's your job. Go look at the audience. At least try to understand them. Pay more attention to people supporting you. There's a research study which predicts subjective anxiety ratings by trying to understand where presenters look. And if presenters look at supportive people, they are less anxious. Everybody's looking at their smartphones? That's feedback. You need to do something. I think that's your moral obligation as a speaker, to take good care of your audience. You're the most important person in the room. They all depend on you, you need to do something. How are you guys doing? Are you tired? Do you need a break? Especially for longer sessions. I think this is your moral obligation. Go and take good care of your audience.
