Saturday, December 26, 2009

He knows if you've been bad or good

Am I the only one who has ever been creeped out by the specter of Santa Claus? An all-knowing, one man judge and jury revanchist who allegedly knows everything that goes on, doling out what he thinks people deserve? As a mild-to-moderate dystopian, I am paranoid about things like that, and if Santa gets his way, he is going to be even more efficiently big-brother-ish than before, according to the byline of this article sent to me by a reader:
By using technology to detect guilty expressions, of course. CSIRO is using automated expression recognition technology to tell whether someone is in pain and, according to computer scientist, CSIRO’s Dr Simon Lucey, there’s no reason why Santa couldn’t train the system to find out who’s been naughty or nice.
We've talked about microexpressions before. And apparently "they" have had some success programming computers to read them:
While a guilty person might fool a human with their look of pure innocence, it’s very hard to fool Dr Lucey’s computer.

“There are always some micro expressions that we are unable to control and some of these are associated with deception. It is these tiny facial expression components that the computer can spot.”

The system uses a technique called machine learning. After being programmed with what to look for and what it means, each observation taken or analysis performed is used to refine the computer’s technique so it gets better at its assigned task over time.

“When it comes to finding out who’s been naughty or nice, we show the computer what expressions are associated with good behaviour and it watches for a departure from that” Dr Simon Lucey

One of the applications for Dr Lucey’s research is in detecting whether someone who cannot communicate is in pain and how intense that pain is.
Yeah, that's *one* application for it. Another, perhaps more obvious application also springs to mind.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Best of 2009

In an effort to make the material on the blog more accessible to new readers and avoid having to repeat myself too much, I have been trying to think of ways to link to important or favorite posts. Taking a cue from every single media outlet in the world, I decided to do a 2009 retrospective. In no particular order, I like this post on mimicry, Bach, sociopath rights, any of the sociopaths in literature, but particularly Byron's Lara, Ruining People Iago style, Sexuality, Flexible sense of self, being "found out," religion, mob mentality, and different moral universes. Have I forgotten any good ones?

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Sociopaths in fiction

Sociopaths portrayed in fiction = mixed bag. Some would-be authors/filmakers have asked me which fictional sociopaths I consider accurate. I, of course, love Dexter, but I don't think I have mentioned before that a favorite sociopath author of mine is Patricia Highsmith. I was enjoying this review in the New York Times of a new biography of Highsmith. I even enjoyed the headline, "Hiding in plain sight." I have a theory that only real sociopaths are able to write from the sociopath point of view in a way that really rings true (to other sociopaths at least), and i have long suspected Ms. Highsmith to be a member of the tribe. The new biography seems to point in that direction.

To truly appreciate good sociopath portrayals, though, I feel like you need to experience bad sociopath portrayals. A reader flagged for me this blog entry, featuring a short story written from the perspective of a murderous sociopath out to teach women a lesson in manners. A warning sign of a bad sociopath portrayal is the author's need to justify the accuracy of his character by referencing the consulting of an expert. I understand the urge. From what I know of popular culture, critics are always questioning the "motivations" of a fictional character. But the mind of a sociopath works so differently than an empath's. There is almost an unspeakable beauty to it, like a work of art. Either the protrayal rings true or it doesn't. It's almost impossible to fake. If you find yourself faking it, though, do like this author did and name drop:
I wouldn’t want to be a psychopath, but I thought it would be a good mental exercise to write a short story from a psychopath’s perspective. After doing the appropriate research, and getting a helping hand from Dr. Robert Hare, the world’s leading expert on psychopathic behavior and mental processes, I composed a bit of romantic psychopathic fiction entitled “Giving Shelter.”
To hear these authors/filmakers/actors talk, you'd think that all Dr. Hare does is consult. He's a smart guy, but he readily acknowledges that many elements of psychopathy remain a mystery even to him. I appreciate the attempts to positively portray sociopathy, but I feel that the accounts that ring most true to life are the accounts that come from the cold black hearts of people like Ms. Highsmith and whoever it is who writes Dexter's internal monologue. It's a blessing and a curse.

Friday, December 11, 2009

An outside perspective

A letter from a reader:
I was just reviewing recent media articles about psychopathy on-line and stumbled across your blog.

I am a doctoral intern in clinical psychology at a forensic state hospital in California. Psychopathy is fascinating to me. Aside from its unique neurological, interpersonal, and even existential attributes; the legal and social implications of psychopathy's marginalization in society is huge. It seems your blog clearly and convincingly (not surprising) addresses the injustices psychopaths face- injustices I find again and again in the forensic setting where I work.

As health care providers, psychologists are trained to uphold equal client rights and ensure every individual's dignified treatment. This is regardless of diagnosis, crime, history, or personality. However, when it comes to psychopathy, it's incredible how quickly clinical providers are able to abandon these previously held ethics, not realizing that they are adopting the unempathic tendencies they explicitly persecute in the psychopath. I am further amazed at the legal and hospital standards set for psychopathic admits, standards that practically necessitate the psychopath to contrive and manipulate their evaluators to believe they are no longer contriving or manipulating, lest they spend the rest of their lives in corrections.

So, while I go up against hospital administration on my end, I want to also convey my admiration of your well-informed and thoughtful blog in the hope that what is better understood may be less feared. Based on history, psychology, and statistical likelihood of danger; I'll take one psychopath with their wits about them over 99 "normals" driven by fear, any day.

Thanks for sharing your experience and for encouraging an interesting and important discussion.
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