Spot the Fake Smile Results You got 13 out of 20 correct Look at the labels below each image to see which smiles are genuine and which are fake. Ticks and crosses show which smiles you got right and wrong. Click on the image if you want to see the smile again. (Above courtesy of http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index_22.shtml? gender=&age=&occupation=&country=&education=&outlook=2&confidence=5&programme=&Q01=fake&Q02= fake&Q03=genuine&Q04=genuine&Q04=genuine&Q06=genuine&Q07=fake&Q08=fake&Q09=fake&Q10=genuine& Q11=fake&Q12=fake&Q13=fake&Q14=fake&Q15=fake&Q16=genuine&Q17=fake&Q18=fake&Q19=genuine&Q20= fake&part=eyebrows) So, I took the “Spot the Fake Smile Test” from BBC and discovered that I am not nearly as inept at pointing out fake smiles as I originally thought. I attempted to use the technique explained by Daniel Pink in his section entitled “Empathy” where he describes a fake smile with higher eyebrows than a real smile in which the eyebrows are lowered by an involuntary muscle. I found it very hard to tell whether the eyebrows were being lowered or not while the person was smiling. I guess I need to work harder at determining how people feel because after all, part of empathy is being able to read a person’s facial expressions. I believe that it would take a lot of practice focused directly on people’s facial expressions in order to master this technique. Until then, I will have to continue to worry whether someone is genuinely smiling at me or if it is a fake smile that I cannot read. After taking this test, I do not feel as confident with my abilities to determine people’s emotions around me. I used to think I was pretty good at it to be honest. Now I wonder how many people’s emotions I have truly misread based on their facial expressions. Only further experience in life will allow me to better my skills at reading people’s feelings and being more empathetic. For now, I will continue to do the best I can, but hopefully in the future my skills will improve.

After reading Daniel Pink’s Empathy section in his book, “A Whole New Mind” he assigned us another task. One of the options was to take a test. It just so happens that I took an empathy test in psychology earlier this semester.

The test was a series of questions, where we answered with a number on a scale from 1 to 7, based on how strongly I personally feel on the question. As I answered the questions, I noticed I wasn’t answering with any 6′s or 7′s, but rather with a lot of 1′s and 2′s.

Come to find out, according to that test, I’m not very empathetic. Questions such as, “Do other people’s moods affect you?” or “Do you find it unpleasant to have a lot of things going on around you?” With some of these questions, I can see it being advantageous to answer strongly (a 6 or 7). But many of these, I feel it is better to have a lower response.

I feel it is good when things don’t affect your routine. I feel it is good that I don’t startle easy. And I feel it is often good that other people’s moods don’t affect me.

In some cases, I can see where an empathetic mindset would be a good thing, but where a more unempathetic mindset would be as advantageous and, in some cases, better.

Before empathy, let me tell a story first: Currently I am working on writing a script that will let my computer to play a game. The mechanics are simple: look for a coffee cup, if it exists then click on a building. How long do we identify a coffee cup? Probably in 2 seconds. For a computer, I have to specify the correct coordinates on the screen, the color of that coffee cup that that location, then let the computer to compare those two. Now I wonder, how can I find the coffee cup so fast but a computer can’t? It’s hard to explain since it happens in less than 1 second, but: First I “learn” the sample I am looking for. It color, size, location. The next time I look at it, I will look at a broader scale, determine if that fits coffee cup in my memory. Thanks to this exercise, I had an idea of “teaching” computer empathy: what if I start from the smallest thing possible? Letting the computer auto-program himself to fit new situations? Not only could to play the game, but it will also succeed on logical thinking process. Simply put your way of thinking into digitalized orders.

Anyway, back to the topic. This book, A Whole New Mind, is nothing but a “How to successfully sell your products to people who don’t need those crap” book. It’s not for an engineer, because their job is to design the product; it’s not for CEOs, because they only need to make the decisions and keep other leaders work for them; it is rather to tell you, AS PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE RECEIVING HIGHER EDUCATION, WE SHOULD TURN OURSELVES INTO SALESMEN TO MAKE THEM WORK FOR US, THEN SELL THE CRAP THEY MADE TO THEM. I won’t question the purpose right now, but seriously. This is an engineer college. 80% of the students will become engineers of some kind. YOU ARE TELLING THEM, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK TO SELL YOUR STUFF? Have you ever seen an aerospace engineer from NASA to sell a company their airships? IT’S NOT THEIR JOB. Its’ like back to the question of, WHY DOES A STORY WRITER NEED TO LEARN CALCULUS? THEY WON’T NEED THAT SKILL EVER IN HIS/HER LIFE AFTER THEY FINISHED THE COURSE. What’s the point of teaching engineers to sell their stuff? Make them suffer? They should be more focused on SOLVING THE PROBLEM, not FINDING CUSTUMERS’ PROBLEMS FOR THEM. Engineers should write technical documents, fully explain the problem, how you will solve it, the mechanics, algorithms, prototype, test output, and end product analysis. Note that the key is HOW YOU WILL SOLVE IT. If you give me the full technical document of Windows, MacOS, or whatever large programs you can ever think of, within several days of typing codes I can reproduce those for you, but THAT’S NOT AN ENGINEER’S JOB. Rather, if you stated “Umm. Global warming is a problem. How should we solve that?” Then how to solve that it’s an engineer’s job. YOU DON’T GO TO 4 YEARS OF SCHOOL JUST TO LEARN YOU CAN GOOGLE “HOW TO SHOW DESKTOP IN JAVA,” but rather “HOW DO I CHANGE DESKTOP WALLPAPER IN JAVA,” then you will list the mechanics of doing it. We are, at least I am, learning the process of solving problems. The process of invention is a technical paper. If you don’t know what those papers contain, let me tell you once again: analyzing problem, how to solve the problem, your prototype, your mechanics, test output, and end product analysis. DO I CARE WHO IS USING MY PRODUCT? THAT’S NOT WHAT I SHOULD WORRY ABOUT. IF MY PRODUCT CORRECTLY SOLVED THE PROBLEM I/OTHERS STATED, THEN I AM A SUCCESSFUL ENGINEER. SELLING THEM? TALK TO MARKET PROMOTORS. WHY SHOULD I CONVINCE YOU TO USE MY STUFF? IF YOU NEED IT, THEN YOU PROBABLY WANT TO USE IT. ELSE, SALESMEN WILL CONVINCE YOU THAT YOU NEED IT. THAT’S THE CYCLE OF BUSINESS. EVERYONE HAS HIS/HER JOB. A RENAISSANCE MAN? YES THERE ARE, BUT A FEW. WHY FORD INVENTED THE ASSEMBLY LINE? BECAUSE HE SENSED NOT EVERYONE CAN DO ALL THINGS TOGETHER. HOW DID HE SOLVE THIS? MAKE EVERYONE FOCUS ON HIS/HER JOB!

People buy why you do, not what you did? What a pity. If I am the customer, I will call myself stupid. What’s the point of people buying stuff that they don’t need? It’s just a way salesmen used to fool people to buy craps they failed to find a market on. Again, I don’t care what you said, I won’t buy a laptop without a touchpad/right click button BECAUSE I NEED THE RIGHT CLICK BUTTON, I NEED A CONVIENT WAY TO USE MY LAPTOP.

I’m very excited to talk about codes I just wrote last week; but 80% of people will see them as crap. A PhD just talked about his robotic running/walking experiment during my health class, all the moving graphs, force/wave lines, etc. I heard him for 50 minutes and still didn’t understand what he was talking about. Things have different values in different people’s eyes; if we are in Japan then my project will probably not be ignored like this. What’s wrong if your problem is small? Bell Gates did not make Windows in one night; your Steve Jobs did not just think overnight and decide, oh, we probably should make a phone where people can program stuff on it, even though android is just like this, but we are still doing it to steal their market. Also, make them expensive as HELL so people can buy them and think that they are MORE ADVANCED/INTELLEGENT PEOPLE. DOS once was just a data organizer; Mac was an advanced painting tool 30 years ago. They improved as time moved on, because people found out more and more problems, and then the engineers were making their products better and better.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE HIRE ME, NOT SOME SMART GUY FROM CHINA OR INDIA? BY LEARNING RIGHT-BRAIN THINKING SKILLS? YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE DUMMER THAN CHINESE OR INDIANS, SO YOU HAVE TO LEARN THOSE OTHER SKILLS AND　HOPE THAT THEY DON’T HAVE? No. Face the truth, close combat with them in problem solving. If I can solve this problem, they can’t, I get hired. That’s why I go to college, to learn the skills. I once went to an anime company, mainly for my own interest, but I learned some company management skills there: they stated “company needs you to solve problems. If company doesn’t have any problems, then you are fired.” If you are the problem solving guy, what in the world will get you fired if the company still needs you to solve problems? DON’T COMPLAIN PEOPLE ARE TAKING YOUR JOBS. THEY STUDIED HARDER THAN YOU. THEY PUT IN MORE WORK. WHERE ARE YOU WHEN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO STUDY? THEN LOSING YOUR JOB IS A DIRECT RESULT.

Don’t use humanity as a reason that this class completely ignores the value of engineering: if that so, then engineers do not need such humanity. Teach this to MBA, Harvard, Yale or Cornel kids to make them CEOs, hire us, and then use us to make big money.

BTW: wordpress failed when I have to bookmark the page of making new post.

Have you ever been in a bad situation or in hard times? If so then you know how much it means to have someone help you without even being asked. I have been on both sides. I know how good it feels to be helped and how good it feels to help someone.

While reading the chapter titled Empathy in Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind I came across an activity called volunteer. The last paragraph of the activity description states:

“Seeing another Human in distress—and thinking, “there but for the grace of God go I”—will hone you powers of empathy. But that’s not the reason to do this, of course. It’s an ancillary benefit of something more valuable: helping another human being.”

When I think of volunteering, I think of anytime a person gives up any of their time in order to help someone else in need or, as said in the book, someone in distress. As a part of the Volunteer activity I would like to share two stories. One of when someone volunteered their time to help me and another when I volunteered my time to help someone.

Story 1- Someone helped me.

I was visiting the cemetery where my grandfather is buried. The site where he is buried is not really in a well traveled area as it is located on a dirt road kind of in the middle of nowhere. Long story short, I attempted to turn my truck around on what I thought was solid dry ground. This resulted in me with truck stuck in the mud with no one around and dark quickly approaching. I heard someone coming down the road (luckily) and went to the road to wave them down. I told the very nice gentleman the problem I had and he without hesitation told me that he would be back with his truck to get me unstuck. Ten minutes later I was unstuck and much happier. I offered to give him some money for his efforts and he replied that God had blessed me today and that I could return the favor by helping next time I saw someone in need.

Story 2- I helped someone

About a half a year after story one I got a significant opportunity to help someone. The gist of this story is I gave a guy with a dead car battery a jump.

Story 2 isn’t quite as cool as story 1 but it helped me understand how good it is to help people in need. Story 1 definitely made me a believer in helping people in need because you never know when you will be the one in need.

Whenever I see someone in “distress” I now try to help them as best I can because it’s a great thing to do. It will brighten your days and especially theirs.

I had an opportunity to volunteer during the earthquake area after Wenchuan earthquake happened. I did not participate in psychological assistance, but I saw many people lose their parents or children. I saw people who were under severe psychological harm. They couldn’t forget the moment that the world collapsed in front of them. What I saw was that they still could not recover from losing their relatives.

During the volunteer process, I saw how close death was. I was deeply touched when I saw a girl who kept calm, and continued to save other people’s lives, even after  her parents  died. At that time, I thought what would it look like if to lose my parent. I felt really sad, and I knew that it would be a nightmare for me to face it. So I knew the pain this girl was going through, and how strong of a heart this young girl had.

After stay several days in this area, indeed, I could feel that I was not a person who was just using  knowledge to help people. I was not outside this disaster, instead, I felt like I had also experienced this disaster with those injured people. I knew it would be tough to go through the subsequent period, but the people had move on because they knew life would keep moving forward. So I tried my best, to do whatever I could to help them. I believe everyone in that area, the volunteers and the victims, had the same goals and emotions.

The people of China, and all those who came to help did not have sympathy, we had empathy. We all experienced the same pain as everyone else did, and we tried to overcome this pain together.

After reading the chapter on Empathy, I chose to carry out the first exercise which is to do a series of test. I have done the two tests; one is Empathy Quotient and Mind in the Eyes Test. I scored 48 out of 80 for the Empathy Quotient test which was what most women got. Furthermore, I got a score of 26 for the Mind in the Eyes Test which was also average.

The Mind in the Eyes Test is very interesting. It reminds me of one famous Chinese saying, “The eyes are the window of the mind.” Sometimes, I could get confused with the emotions the eyes trying to convey. Honestly, I do not think the answers should be just one kind of emotions. In many real-life situations, one person could have many emotions at the same time. Those emotions would be shown in one’s eyes. However, I understand that the test is just a tool to get a rough view of your empathy stand.

I want to talk more about the community services which I have done in Singapore. I lived in a small town with the ordinary education. The main purpose of schools in my hometown is to help you to get better grades and promote you to a higher education. They do not really care about the community services. Only after I went to Singapore, I got a touch on community services. I really loved all kinds of community services I could be involved in. For example, I have done the recycling project which was to raise money for the poor by collecting and selling old newspapers.

Moreover, some of my friends participated in the teaching programme. They went to some place in Africa to teach the local kids English. It was such a pity that I could not join the programme due to time constraints. I wonder if GT offers this kind of opportunity for us to go abroad to help those kids in developing countries. Moreover, I have planned to teach in a poor village in China after my graduation from GT.

Thanksgiving is coming. Let’s thank all people who contribute to our lovely and peaceful world. Let’s do our best to let the world filled with love!

Click to view slideshow.

Images by Weiting

So I took BBC’s “Spot the Fake Smile” test and scored a respectable 18 out of 20. I was probably only able to score so high because of the technique of watching the eyes that Dan Pink explains in A Whole New Mind. I just thought it was pretty ironic that I managed to do so well in an activity typically considered to require a strong “right brain,” using a seemingly “left brain” methodology.

I feel ya. As in I feel ya man, I understand. That’s because of empathy. I understand feelings, emotions, sadness and happiness that you convey.

Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness)

Empathy is not easily overlooked. It’s not only one of the things that makes us human, but it ties us together. In Daniel Pink’s chapter Empathy, he uses a very awesome example. He shows two pictures, side by side. In one picture, he’s smiling. In the other picture, he’s also smiling. The difference is that one is a genuine smile caused by something humorous someone said while the other is a forced smile, when there’s nothing funny to laugh or smile at.

What’s interesting is that I was immediately able to point out which is which. This is the concept of empathy. Humans can express their emotion in amazing ways and other humans are able to pick up on that, like a universal language.

For this chapter, there are a few exercises that interested me. The first was the activity on Volunteer work. All it requires is for you to go volunteer. Although this isn’t something I can go out and simply do as an assignment, I think it’s an important concept. My mother has always encouraged volunteer work. In high school, we were required to turn in 10 hours of community service per year. That’s not bad at all. By the end of the year, I had turned in 110 hours of community service. It’s not about the hours, it’s about what it means.

Volunteer work is a basic way to show that you care. It shows other’s that emotion. By volunteering, you’re identifying with less fortunate people. Even if it’s something insignificant like picking up trash on the side of the road, people will see that and empathize with the wonderful, selfless work that you’re doing. For that reason, and because I’ve learned that helping others is often the best way to help yourself, I will never stop volunteering. I remember that one of the happiest, most enjoyable experiences in my life was pain-staking manual labor on a mission trip for hours on end. It’s not what you do, it’s why you do it.

Another exercise that I really truly did identify with is the exercise on cards. It says that instead of buying cards, try making them by hand. This shows that you care. This is almost a verbatim repeat of what my mom always told me as a child. I never use pre-made birthday cards. It’s not because I’m cheap, but because of what my mom taught me. I used to do it, not complain about it, nor care about it. It didn’t make a difference, but I didn’t truly understand. One year for my birthday, I got a large amount of cards, as usual. But my favorite was the piece of paper with a picture of the person and very sloppy handwriting and drawings in crayon, from my little sunday school student. The effort makes one identify and feel empathy.

Here’s the way I used to love to do my birthday cards (colors unavailable). This is about what they looked like when I was doing them as a younger child…

How much do you love me? … I love you 48.

This does not work. Some things are just best left unmeasured. And of all the things in the world, at least the right brain stuff must be isolated from numbers and tests (especially multiple choice tests!).

Having said that, I scored a 48 on the EQ test (and got a message that said most men scored a 42 and women 47, which means that

according to that test, I am more “female” than most women – a direct insult to my masculinity!), although I’m not quite sure I answered all the questions correctly. After reading the chapter, my responses were obviously biased.

Tests (and their irrelevance) aside, the chapter on Empathy in Dan Pink’s ‘A Whole New Mind’ was my favorite thus far. Pink does point out that this quality will be important in the new Conceptual Age. More importantly though, unlike everywhere else in the book where he constantly preaches why the six senses will be important for professionals to survive in the the new age, as if the sole purpose of acquiring these new qualities is to establish successful businesses, he actually mentions somewhere that empathy is “much more than a vocational skill necessary for surviving twenty-first century labor markets. It’s an ethic for living”.

And indeed it is. But whether it can be acquired by learning “techniques” to analyse faces is another matter altogether. I think that such a quality comes, and should come, naturally in the sense that one must not consciously be analyzing expressions to be empathetic. Becoming a better person and having a genuine connection with others are prerequisites.

Considering that as the sole criteria, my score of 48 does sort of seem reasonable, masculine or not. I may personally be on the anti-social side, but I do possess the ability to understand and decipher any other person’s state of mind without that person saying anything about it.

I may not have developed all the remaining right-brain senses that Pink mentions in his book. But this, at least, is one that I’m fairly good at – and I’m proud of it.

Dan Pink encouraged us to take a series of tests to calculate our empathy levels, ability to spot genuine smiles and judge eye expressions.

For the Empathy Quotient test:

http://tinyurl.com

My Empathy Quotient was 36 which is above average for males.  Meaning I am more of a left brained thinker and have an overall “male brain.”

For the Spot the Fake Smile test:

http://tinyurl.com/2u7sh

My score for the spot the fake smile was 18.  This test was by far the highest scoring for me.  This came to a surprise to me because while I was taking it I was lacking confidence in my answers.  I thought this test was going to be the hardest.

For the Mind in the Eyes test:

http://tinyurl.com/ckrj3

I fell at a nice average number of 26 for this test.  I found this test to be the most boring because the eyes were starting to look alike after the first few questions.

Overall I was happy with my results.  I think I underestimated my ability at spotting fake smiles, maybe this talent will come in handy later in life.  Reading facial expressions in the eyes is something I will have to practice.  If what Dan Pink says about empathy in this chapter is true, then I will have to work on becoming more “female brain.”

What about you?

What were your scores on these tests?

Post your scores and see how you compare!