When we were younger, our parents may have told us to keep our elbows off the dining table. Though they’re our biological guardians and try to guide us in the right direction, they cannot teach us everything. In the following paragraphs, I will be taking a closer look at eye contact communication, cultural differences, emotion detection AI and the interplay of light and dark.
In Arabic speaking countries, it’s customary for passers-by in souqs or street to say ‘as-salamu alaykum’ (Arabic: السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ) when momentary eye contact is exchanged. This phrase means peace be upon you or peace for short, ‘salam’. Recent generations have somehow distorted this timeless message, because what sometimes comes across through body language and eye contact is unfriendly and provoking. Whether public or private, we all share spaces with other people and exchange words to socialize, express our opinion and get work done. If we cannot exchange polite pleasantries, something is very flawed under our skin.
We keep hearing the idiom ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’ but how true is this? If they are the window, are they open or closed? Are they clear or tinted? Which direction are they facing? Is there a glare? Are they reflecting anything or just absorbing visual data? How much are they letting in and at what rate?
Cleaning House
Before you can fully open your windows, you need some self-awareness. This will help you navigate stormy environments when you need to keep your windows shuttered down. Opening your windows exposes your house to the elements, nosey neighbors, soul grabbers and dirt. Opening your windows lets in light and circulates air through your temple when you need to breathe and release pent-up pressure. Some of us have more capacity than others because we’ve built our inner dwellings taller and with more or bigger windows—not everyone is the same. Through trial and error, you will understand when to open and close which windows. So keep your windows clean, air-out your house often, and welcome the passing birds and bees.
Social Archetypes Pt. II
Medusas:
In Greek mythology, Medusa was a snake haired female who turned anyone who gazed at her into stone. This archaic fable can be reinterpreted as a metaphor for the power of eye contact and influence. Under high stress, anxiety, excitement, arousal or exhaustion, people can be hypnotized and experience tunnel vision if trapped in the gaze of someone who has perceptive power over them.
Another parallel to this mind control trick is when someone says “I’m in his/her head,” most famously illustrated as part of the force in the Jedi mind trick scene in George Lucas’ Star Wars.
People that are used to being under blind group opinion, taking instructions from others or too weak to override outside pressure, fall prey to those who play these subtle control games. Good natured people and those that are too trusting can also fall into this trap without realizing. Medusa’s try to pull you in when alone and push hidden buttons in groups, to manipulate others and feel in control. If you feel frozen in an awkward gaze or unable to respond to comments with hidden intentions, someone who thinks they know you is trying play Medusa. Open demystification and public confrontation works well in these situations because Medusas can’t fool everybody at once.
Egomaniacs:
Some trust fund babies suffer from status anxiety and feel the need to constantly prove themselves by seeking out—on and off turf—battles. They’re the ones who get hostile from eye contact and always interpret it as a challenge or personal attack. Innate unaddressed childhood issues can bring out hostility in these individuals with as little as an innocent look. This can lead to a lot of bad social decisions because of their inability to appropriately manage privilege and distinguish between people they can and can’t overpower. Their ego rules over them and is in control of their words and actions. If this behavior persists, these types end up destroying their friendships, marriages and companies—for politically inclined egomaniacs, the cost can be their countries and the lives of their people. Their blindness prevents them from seeing that they can’t win every battle and confrontation. If they try to do so, they’ll get drained towards the end of the day, misinterpreting friendly gestures while unaware of their own triggers. They end up disrupting the social peace doing—sometimes—irreversible damage because of ego gone haywire.
Predators:
Predators can be spotted by how they stare and lock-on their targets. While projecting their intension, they are tunnel-visioned and cannot see a crowd of onlookers watching everything in plain sight. The older predators get, the more out of control they behave because they think seniority grants them permission to do what they want. They try to act young to blend in with younger groups but are easily exposed by those who are aware of their games. They flee as soon as they feel their tactics are spotted or if their every move is being watched.
Parasites:
Sneakily whispering their malicious messages, parasites try to fly under the social detection radar. They know their negativity and ill intentions will be swatted on sight, so they often operate privately on one person at a time. They are the voice of doubt in your head, the ones who gossip about other people and the ones who never have anything nice to say. In a group, they’re quiet unless there’s an opportunity to bad mouth someone who’s not there. They communicate by trying to make eye contact when a topic comes up that they discussed with you in private. Parasites are toxic and shouldn’t be given any attention or room to spread their low orbiting influence.
Assassins:
Assassins operate in clusters and are triggered into violence by basic eye contact. They are unstable individuals who misunderstand calm glances as personal insult. Because of their lack of intelligence and logical reasoning, there’s no point trying to rationalize with the irrational. They have no self-respect so the golden rule will not resonate or work with them. They are the mad bulls that don’t respect the host or environment, be it a small party, a large wedding or casual dewaniya. Ignoring assassins keeps them from baiting you into a lawless arena.
…There is a Talmudic discussion showing that the “eye for eye” cannot be possibly literal, otherwise a blind person could blind others with total immunity…
…The idea of the silver rule can lead to a better definition of equality: one in which no person has a permanent spot at the top, where all share equal probability of losing the top-dog status. A bureaucrat would be as likely as a baker to join the rank of the unemployed …(see silver rule)
Agents:
To an agent, a conversation is an interrogation. Their paranoia keeps them trapped in a world where everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Their eyes can be cold and calculating, revealing no personal information or emotions. They are experts in mental extraction and break their subjects by overwhelming them with a barrage of questions, accompanied by a penetrating laser gaze. Processing micro-expressions, tells and tense body language in real-time is effortless for agents. Their intrusive eyes resemble a high lumen interrogation lamp which is why talking to them feels uneasy. Because they’re always pushing for more while giving absolutely nothing, many people avoid them and their one sided, blunt conversations.
Reframers:
Projecting their worldview on the weak minded and those they outrank, reframers push their ideas and opinions by muting others through intricate mind games. They get their influence by using soft power, which they acquire through building what appears on the surface to be trust and understanding. Reframers wait until someone opens up to seed a copy of themselves which rearranges their subjects frame of mind. Their understanding of the world is often delusional, that is why they use these tactics to build loyalty that they can control. Classic examples of reframer manipulative influence includes guilt tripping, withholding affection and priority magnetism — which isolates their targets from a balanced social life and corners them in an ‘on-demand’ friendship. People under this kind of influence make impulsive lifestyle changes and believe that they are making their own choices and decisions. They wake up from this hypnosis when their reframer moves on to someone else and they are discarded.
Hydras:
A hydra is a frienemy, who takes cheap shots when your guard is down. When you’re both alone they act friendly and reserved but in a group, they always slide in a low blow comment when you least expect it. Their aim is to limit you and downplay what you’re saying but in an indirect and public way. Because they play on your better nature and kinder side, hydras keep a low volume in the social grass but bait you in ways that make you overthink later. If you respond by cutting off one of the hydras heads, two more emerge in its place. These serpentines are poisonous and feed off the hidden envy they harbor.
Radars:
Continuously being in an environment with the characters detailed above puts our systems in high alert mode. Overly aware people with high social intelligence can intuitively pick up on nonverbals, insinuations and threats. A step up from overly aware is hyper-vigilance. Hyper-vigilant people are highly receptive to the environment and experience states of enhanced sensory sensitivity. They are like radars, scanning for people, behaviors, sights, sounds, smells, or anomalies that threaten the status quo. They’re highly attuned to subtle shifts in behavior and are the watchers of their group.
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” —Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Suns:
Suns are carriers of the light. When they’re in a room, darkness subsides and negative people stop talking automatically. Their beaming eyes radiate positivity that challengers can’t deflect or influence. They are many levels in life above the average person but connect with everyone without making them feel a difference. Some suns may come off as deep black holes with nothing visible but that reflected nothing, is nothing relatable to negative archetypes. Crossing paths with suns leaves you feeling better and uplifted. This is because they only have real conversations and give timeless insight. Their presence can be felt as a warm gravitational pull, and their shine blinds the eyes of Medusas, Egomaniacs, Predators, Parasites, Assassins, Reframers, Hydras, and paranoid Agents. They’re fair in social settings and give everyone equal eye contact and attention. When they speak, they don’t use their voice to pressure those they know they can overpower. They say what they think and allow the group to form their own conclusions at their own pace. They plant seeds of hope and always return after dark to shine light on life’s situations.
Chemistry, Babies and Transcendental Contact
Eye contact during communication activates our social brain and is essential for learning appropriate social behavior. The brain is a laboratory of chemicals, and the eyes hold the keys to some of those chemicals. By making eye contact or observing things, our brain can release: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, norepinephrine, etc. Hormones and neurotransmitters are secreted by our endocrine and nervous systems, which together regulate our mood and maintain homeostasis. Being in a healthy social environment brings down our defenses and relaxes our prehistoric animal brain, allowing our natural laboratory to release feel good chemicals that give us an organic social high and calmness.
Depending on where you live, eye contact can mean different things. In some parts of the world making eye contact with elders is a sign of defiance and disrespect. In other parts, it means you are focused and paying attention to what is being said. The rules are different and always changing depending on the situation and place. Intensity of eye contact and intention is very telling but not detectable by everyone. Some people can’t handle long eye contact exchanges; they feel exposed and you can feel them squirming and putting up internal walls. Knowing your audience and setting is important to adjust to appropriate glances. Workaholics may forget to switch back to neutral mode if they’re in meetings all day with people trying to get something out of them. Their defensive glare can overlap into social post-work settings and cause unease in an intention safe space.
Oxytocin
Known as the love hormone, oxytocin is what’s secreted into the blood stream when a mother and baby are bonding and breast feeding. Without oxytocin in our mothers’ biochemistry, the labor process wouldn’t start and we would have a harder time emerging out into the world. This is the hormone that connects mother and child with unconditional love. Oxytocin is also involved during social bonding, and plays a role in trust and empathy. Though associated with positive emotions, it is now clear that oxytocin is also active during aggression and negative emotions. The role of oxytocin is more complex than previously hypothesized, further research is still in progress by the neuroscience community.
Babies and young children are unable to communicate their needs through language let alone make sense of their jumble of emotions. They’re like sensitive sponges absorbing the random world of noise around them. Babies stare and are open to direct eye contact, they get our attention and try to reach out when they want to be fed, held or comforted. People in trouble also reach out with their eyes when they are unable to communicate danger. Victims of playground bullying, public extortion or a robbery in progress, all try to reach out to passers-by with their eyes. Intelligent animals also try to communicate with us in the same way. We have all seen a video of a sad elephant, an excited dog or a curious dolphin, and their reaction to food, affectionate caretakers or children. There is something transcendental about the power of eye contact that doesn’t distinguish between sex, creed or species.
Blind Spots
No matter how much we think we can see or understand, we never have a full picture of the world as it actually is. We are naturally bias towards people, opinions and experiences we identify with. This blinds us to all the social information that we are unable to detect or make sense of. Our brain has selective vision and selective listening, and ends up canceling most of what is in view to not overwhelm us. Just like we have gaps in our knowledge we have gaps in our vision, when we’re not looking at something from all possible angles. Life doesn’t run in fixed frames or narratives, life is continuous. Our world view should be continuously expanding and adapting to what unfolds in our limited frame of vision.
Bright people can sometimes be too much for dark people, and conflicts can erupt over social territory. To the unaware, this can look like a personality clash but it is much deeper than it seems. Dark people hide behind protective layers to hide their true identity but the bright see through their many masks. When someone bright enters the space, this creates social friction that can be felt by others on different levels of consciousness. When this shift happens, those who are present realize what has been going on in the dark. The connection is further felt when the hidden dark person leaves the space and the room feels ‘lighter’ and people begin talking more naturally. Dark people unconsciously make others raise their guard and close-up without even making direct contact. Like smog in a room, the air feels thick and heavy to breathe until bright people balance the space.
A.eye.
Artificial Intelligence technology primed with eye tracking software has permanently changed traditional interrogation methods and security standards. We have moved beyond George Orwell’s 1984 dystopian fiction in a very short period of time. Today, AI can gather all kinds psychometrics on suspects, prospective students, potential employees and government officials—with only an eye measuring camera. Through machine learning (ML), computers can be trained to detect movement, suggest tailored financial investments and verify individuals better than our trusty human eye. Our intelligent digital eyes will be our truth machines, personal psychoanalysts and home security.
According to MIT’s AI research, deep learning algorithms have already surpassed humans in recognizing images on a screen. These complex image systems can easily assimilate fMRI scans, CCTV footage and large datasets. Many companies are trying to leverage the power of AI to disrupt their industries and get a leg-up on what’s to come in the near future. By using a combination of autonomous deductive reasoning, machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL), algorithms can analyze human emotions and movement in real-time computing (RTC). Possibilities of AI detection include:
Smart Home:
Monitor visitors (Authentication), access control, prevention of burglary, support elderly or disabled persons (Gesture Recognition)
Enable smooth interaction and communication between humans and appliances as well as appliances and appliances
Enhancing home robots by enabling emotion recognition
Automotive Industry / Smart Car:
Driver Surveillance: Detect Drowsiness and Intoxication of drivers (Individual Emotion Recognition)
Face Recognition Access /Authentication (Face Authentication)
Prevent vandalism or threats in public transport vehicles
Human Resources:
Assess suitable candidates (Individual Emotion Recognition) during the recruitment process
Insurance companies:
Analyze insurance claims based on the measured integrity of policyholders (Individual Emotion Recognition)
Banks:
Check truthfulness and reliability of potential borrowers (Individual Emotion recognition) in online application processes
Additional authentication at ATMs in order to prevent fraud (“Skimming”) (Authentication of customers)
Access control for personnel and customers (Face Recognition)
Prevent “Cash Trapping” at ATMs (Detection of Manipulations)
Gaming Industry:
Make motion recognition possible with a normal webcam (Gesture Recognition)
Security and Police Departments, Immigration Services, Border Control:
Check truthfulness of immigrants (Individual Emotion Recognition)
Monitor borders, events, locations via CCTV augmentation
Law enforcement:
Facilitate criminal investigation (Individual Emotion Recognition) or questioning at immigration services and border control.
Locations, Events:
Monitor crowds and prevent riots and accidents (Face Recognition, Crowd Recognition Event and location monitoring.
Health:
Recognize a-normal body movements with professional athletes and thus prevent costly injuries (Gesture Recognition)
Facilitate training
Manufacturing / “Smart Factory”:
Monitor production process (Gesture Recognition) or Quality Control (Anomalies Recognition) with normal HD cameras
Make workplaces safer, e.g. enable safe co-operation of humans and robots, monitor work gear on construction sites (Anomalies detection, Gesture Recognition)
Marketing:
Personalize online and POS customer communication and service offerings (General Emotion Recognition), (Gesture Recognition)
Deepfakes
Our modern lexicon embraces terminology like deep neural network, deep learning and DeepMind, but what about deepfake? Like Snapchat’s face filters and face swap, deepfakes superimpose politician/celebrity images or videos to create high quality fake footage. This will have major implications in the media, which is already full of fake news and contradicting stories. Though deepfakes can be generated by anyone for entertainment or pranks, more sophisticated deepfakes can be used to misrepresent well-known public figures in Hollywood and global politics. Deepfake technology is adding to the skepticism of an already suspicious public but this will not slow down big news corporations who can soon personalize their subliminal messages to individual tastes and preferences—by targeting emotional centers to sway public opinion at will.
We can all (on some level) feel when we’re being watched, some of us more accurately than others. When we feel someone’s watching us, we can zero-in on them even in a packed opera hall or football stadium. Highly attuned people can sense the eyes of someone watching them from behind. Smartphone zombies are completely oblivious to this sensory attention and unaware of what’s happening around them. They are out of touch with human interaction because of how much time they spend behind screens than actual face time with real people. Today machines are doing a better job at identifying and responding to our facial expressions and emotions than we are. If this digital trend continues, we will have an emotionally numb generation in the not so distant future.
We meet each other with our eyes before we meet in proximity. This being said, we shouldn’t force eye contact with someone that is clearly avoiding it. Full spectrum life naturally has its ups and downs, which flushes us with a buffet of hormones and emotions. We are not always on our best days, and we shouldn’t show everyone in our path everything happening inside us. Mindful people know how to give and receive appropriate eye contact and have a conversation without words.
“Close your eyes and let the mind expand. Let no fear of death or darkness arrest its course. Allow the mind to merge with Mind. Let it flow out upon the great curve of consciousness. Let it soar on the wings of the great bird of duration, up to the very Circle of Eternity.” —Hermes Trismegistus
