Posts Tagged ‘emotions’
New App Uses Smartphone Sensors to Automatically Tag Photos With Names, Places and Emotions
Dubbed TagSense, the new app was developed by students from Duke University and the University of South Carolina who combined smartphones’ many sensors into one all-encompassing tag suite. The technique goes way beyond GPS technology to recreate a and context.
A phone’s built-in accelerometer could tell whether a person is standing still, dancing or engaged in some other activity, according to a . Light sensors in the phone, normally used to dim or brighten a display screen, can be used to tell whether the picture is inside our outside; weather conditions can be checked against the phone’s location; and it can even use a microphone to tell whether the subject of the photo is laughing or quiet.
All these attributes are assigned to each picture, and a user can search according to various categories, the news release says.
“So, for example, if you've taken a bunch of photographs at a party, it would be easy at a later date to search for just photographs of happy people dancing,” said Chuan Qin, a visiting graduate student from the University of South Carolina.
The students tested the system using eight Google Nexus One mobile phones, snapping more than 200 photos at various spots on the Duke campus, and found it was more sophisticated than Google’s Picasa or Apple’s iPhoto tagging systems, according to Romit Roy Choudhury, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke.
The team unveiled the app at the ninth Association for Computing Machinery's International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services (MobiSys), being held in Washington, D.C.
The Psychology of Semen, Part Two: Your Questions Answered
Come again?
Friday I spoke with evolutionary anthropologist Gordon Gallup, Jr. at SUNY Albany again to get some answers.
Many of you quite reasonably questioned whether the mood-boosting properties of semen could apply to other types of sex than vaginal. For now, that’s an open question, as Gallup says no studies have been conducted on the anti-depressant properties of semen received by women or men during oral or anal sex.
Gallup’s team tried to look at the effects of semen on gay men who were having unprotected anal sex but could not continue, because almost all of the study participants were ingesting semen during oral sex, which could have confounded the results. (An interesting note: The researchers did not ask the women in the 2002 whether or not they were engaging in oral sex. Future studies should rectify that, if you ask me.)
Despite the lack of direct research, Gallup said he “wouldn’t be a bit surprised” if oral and anal sex provided a mood boost. “There’s no guarantee that all of the ingredients in semen will survive the digestion process and stomach acid, which could conceivably change some of the semen chemistry. But given what we know about birth control pills, most of the hormones should survive.” Regarding anal sex, he added: “My guess would be that the chemicals in semen would be absorbed through the lining of the colon.”
Here’s some related research that’s worth mentioning:
“There’s some evidence that gay males following anal intercourse will go out of their way to try to retain the semen for extended periods of time, which suggests psychotropic effects,” Gallup says. (I wonder whether the “sexiness” quotient of having your partner’s semen inside you might be another, perhaps complimentary, explanation.)
Oral sex has been linked to health effects in women. Women who frequently ingest their partner’s semen to have a significantly lower risk of preeclampsia -- a mysterious and dangerous pregnancy condition that is the leading cause of prenatal infant death -- than women who do not swallow. The findings may seem like a stretch, but before you cry foul, consider that a number of have shown the same correlation from unprotected vaginal sex. Researchers theorize that preeclampsia evolved at least in part to allow women to unwittingly reject pregnancies resulting from “unfamiliar” semen. Such an adaptation would favor partners who stick around for a while, and who would be more likely to share the considerable burden of parenthood. If semen from oral sex can affect whether or not a woman carries her baby to term, who’s to say it can’t have other consequences on a woman’s body, such as affecting her mood?
Couldn’t other factors have been at work?
Some of you wondered whether hormonal birth control or the “depth” or the relationship could have affected the results of the study. The researchers considered these factors. Of the sexually active women who never used condoms, seven out of 10 were on the Pill. However, there were no significant differences in depression scores as a function of the Pill either within or across the condom-use categories. Likewise, there were no differences in depression scores based on whether women were in relationships or the length of those relationships.
Do vasectomies matter?
They might. Again, Gallup says that no one has yet studied how male sterilization affects the possible mood-boosting effects of semen. However, anecdotal evidence does indicate a correlation: “We’ve had a number of women contact us to tell us that as a result of their partners having vasectomies, they’ve experienced a return to depressive kinds of symptoms,” he says. “Prior to being in a relationship with semen exposure [the women] were depressed, but as long as they were being inseminated their depression was diminished. Now that their partner was vasectomized, the depressive symptoms returned, suggesting that vasectomy may have an impact on seminal chemistry.”
So is rape supposed to be mood-boosting?
Obviously not. Mood isn’t simply a result of our biochemistry, and the depression-alleviating benefits of semen would likely be trumped by the trauma of the rape, and the possible negative consequences, such as unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases, Gallup says. Plus, he adds, “It may very well be the case that the anti-depressant properties of semen are dose dependent, and that repeated insemination may be necessary to get the effects.”
Should we throw our condoms out?
One commenter on this site said that Gallup’s research is a step backward for safe sex, which is a predictable concern I probably should have addressed the first time around. Gallup’s response was clear: “Don’t take this to mean that you should begin practicing unsafe sex. If you’re depressed and using condoms, and then throw your condoms away and develop an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease, your previous depression [could worsen].” The bottom line as I see it: Don’t switch up your routine if it’s going to put you at some sort of risk. But if you’re already having responsible condom-free sex, enjoy it -- and the mood-boosting benefits you may be getting from it.
Jennifer Abbasi is a science and health writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She has seen every episode of The X-Files. Have a question about the science of sex? Email Jen at popsci.thesexfiles@gmail.com.
Women’s Emotional Tears Are a Turnoff for Men, Suggesting a Chemical Compound At Work
Although men were unable to smell the difference between real tears and a saline solution, they had decidedly different reactions to each. Men who sniffed real tears became less sexually aroused by photographs of women than those who sniffed saline. Just to be sure skin was not the culprit, the researchers dripped saline down women’s cheeks, to the same effect: Only real, fresh-cried tears turned men off.
The researchers, from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Israel, actually . They expected tears’ chemical signals to trigger empathy or sadness, but that didn’t happen; they did, however, dampen men’s sexual desire. Some researchers believe this phenomenon evolved to protect emotionally vulnerable women from male aggression, while others believe it’s evidence of a heretofore unknown human pheromone, .
To capture tears, two donor women ages 30 and 31 watched sad movies by themselves and placed vials beneath their eyes to collect teardrops. The researchers needed fresh tears no more than two hours old, so the women watched weepies like “Terms of Endearment,” “My Sister’s Keeper” and “When a Man Loves a Woman,” the Times reports. Their tears were collected 1 milliliter at a time and deposited onto small pads that were attached beneath men's noses, so they could continuously sniff the sadness.
Then 24 men, whose mean age was 27, were shown emotionally ambiguous photographs of women and asked to rate the faces’ sadness and their attractiveness. The faces appeared less sexually attractive after sniffing real tears, according to the study.
The researchers also learned the men experienced a drop in testosterone. Then, the men sniffed tears and watched a sad movie while in a functional MRI machine, which showed reduced activity in the brain regions associated with arousal.
Other bodily fluids, like sweat, are known to contain chemical signals that influence others’ emotions or behaviors, so it makes sense that tears would have a similar effect, the researchers say. The next step is to study the emotional tears of children and men — potentially explaining the lachrymose nature of the new .
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Video: ‘Sociable’ Robot Head Elicits Your Trust with Realistic Eye Movements and Glowing Ears
The researchers mimicked the speed and movement patterns of human eyes and programmed the head to follow organically when the robot’s focus moves. Spring-loaded blinking eyelids atop oversized Bambi-like eyes intersperse realistic blinks to break up the Dreamer’s deadened gaze.
Built for the Meka humanoid robot they’re developing, the head was modeled after the non-threatening appearance of female anime characters. Most of the development efforts focused on eye and head movement to feign "kind expressions" and allow the robot to focus on tasks and people without a terrifyingly intense stare.
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Intel’s Context-Aware Computing Will Let Your Smartphone Sense Your Mood
How will your phone climb out of your pocket and into your head? Intel’s CTO Justin Rattner thinks that, by combining the geolocation already standard in smartphones with data from sources (the microphone, the camera, the gyro, etc.), phones could figure out a lot more about you. For instance, gyro data could tell if you’re taking an easygoing stroll or if you’re rushing. Judging by time, noise levels, and even things like breathing, your phone could know if you are asleep or awake.
By logging this data, your phone could learn a lot about your routine: when you typically sleep and when you wake up, when you generally perform your morning and evening commutes, places you frequent, what news you like to read on your mobile device, or what coffee shop is your favorite. By learning how you live, it could then offer you advice, move your news apps to your home screen during your a.m. bus commute, or perhaps even notify you when that Starbucks near your office that you frequent is giving away free free non-fat half-caff lattes (because that’s your favorite, and your phone knows it).
Mood-sensing phones are pure concept for now, but Rattner has suggested publicly that context-aware computing will begin to emerge in Intel products in the “not-too-distant future.” The company has already demonstrated a television remote that knows who is holding it by learning how different members of a household grasp it, learning each viewer’s entertainment likes and dislikes as well.
Networked with a phone that knows where you’ve been, what news you’re already heard about, and how you’re feeling, soon your TV could know if you’re in the mood for Monday Night Football or a quiet night catching up on Gossip Girl. And stop trying to act like you don’t like Gossip Girl. Your phone told us so.
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EEG Monitoring Headband Could Track and Catalog Your Emotional Response to Movies
Films could be indexed by the emotional responses they elicit
In the video below, Robert Oschler of Android Review demonstrates EmoRate, a software program that catalogs his emotions. It captures his reactions to the "Sintel" trailer, from the project.
EmoRate uses the Emotiv 14-electrode mind-reading headset, which wirelessly connects to a computer. The EEG reads and tracks your facial expressions, which allows it to track your emotions. This allows the computer to respond to your emotions and lets you affect the computer's actions.
The computer tracks four primary emotions -- happiness, sadness, anger and fear -- and catalogs when they occur. The catalog acts as a "silicon extension" of memory.
Once the catalog is built, you can search by emotion. Like a Mr. Skin for fear, the program will tell you precisely when a fear-inducing scene appears on screen.
The best part: You can search for scenes by emotion, just by remembering the scene and the emotion it conjured.
As Oschler explains, he recalls a fearsome scene in the trailer when a baby dragon is snatched away from the heroine. As he thinks about the moment, the fear meter rises, and the computer searches the catalog for fear-inducing scenes.
Watch the video:
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Braille for Faces: Using a Camera and Tactile Display, System Lets Blind “See” Others’ Emotions
Visual information is relayed through the tactile display as a series of vibrations that are sequentially activated to provide a stream of emotional information as a conversation meanders. As the subject's face turns from happiness to concerned to interested, the user is fed different signals that allow him or her to infer the changing emotional status through tactile sensation delivered by a forearm sleeve.
Of course, a user must first learn how to interpret the tactile information, but using one's own face as a guide, that's not so difficult. A visually impaired person sits in front of the setup with his or her own face as the subject. By going through a range of emotional gestures, the person can quickly teach his or her brain to associate certain gestures and faces with the vibrations he or she feels.
The research has thus far focused mainly on how best to convey those facial tics and non-verbal cues into data the computer vision could read and translate into tactile data, but with the hard part out of the way, the research group is looking at further commercial applications for the tech, some that are aimed at seeing people as well.
How cool would it be if you could tell that a text from your significant other was either angry or sweet simply by the way your phone vibrates in your pocket? Or keep up with a baseball game during dinner simply through the vibrations of your mobile device? You don't have to answer that question -- a gesture into your Web cam will do.
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