Computers can kick our butts at math, logic, and chess—by now, that’s a given. But reading emotions, most of us probably would like to believe, is a skill reserved for humans. Isn’t that a big part of what separates us from machines in the first place?
Well, not anymore. In a study published this week in Current Biology, researchers led by the University of California-San Diego’s Marian Bartlett pitted humans against computers in a battle to see who could best distinguish between genuine and faked facial expressions of pain. We lost, by a lot.
In the experiment, more than 150 participants were shown short videos of the faces of people who either dunked their arms in ice water orpretended to dunk their arms in ice water. The group was asked to gauge the authenticity of each pained reaction, and succeeded in weeding out the fakers from the true sufferers only 51.9 percent of the time—no more accurate than if they simply had left their guess to chance.
Which video screenshot shows this woman experiencing actual pain? (Photo: University of California-San Diego) (Answer: B)
via Pacific Standard
