Canadian HR Reporter

CanaDian hr rePorTer September 22, 2014 11 Study shows computer program can be a better gauge of real emotion By Sarah Dobson e mployers go through all kinds of hoops and hurdles to try to ensure the integri- ty of job candidates. whether it's reference checks, credit checks or psychometric tests, they spare no expense to get to the truth. But is that enough? What if they had technology that could gauge, with consider- able accuracy, whether a person was being honest about their emotions and telling the truth? A joint study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the University at Buf- falo and the University of Toronto found that a computer-vision sys- tem can distinguish between real and faked expressions of pain more accurately than humans. As a result, they say the system could also be used to detect de- ceptive actions in the realms of security, psychopathology, medi- cine, law — and job screening. In highly social species such as humans, faces have evolved to convey rich information, includ- ing expressions of emotion and pain, says Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto in- volved with the study. "And, because of the way our brains are built, people can simu- late emotions they're not actu- ally experiencing so successfully that they fool other people. e computer is much better at spot- ting the subtle differences be- tween involuntary and voluntary facial movements." e study involved two experi- ments with a total of 205 human observers who were asked to as- sess the veracity of expressions of pain in video clips of individuals, with some having their hands im- mersed in ice water to measure pain tolerance, while others faked painful expressions. e human observers could not distinguish real expressions of pain from faked expressions of pain better than chance. Even after they were trained, their accuracy only improved to 55 per cent compared to the computer, which attained 85 per cent accuracy. "Dynamic motion, the move- ment of muscles when you're actually experiencing emotion, is diff erent than the smoothness of the actions when you're posing the emotion. e reason for this is signals for those expressions originate in diff erent parts of the brain," says Mark Frank, professor of communication at the Univer- sity at Buff alo, who was involved with the study. And while humans are good at detecting the presence or absence of a smile, for example, they can't necessarily tell the diff erence be- tween a fake smile and a real one. " e types of movement were fairly similar in the real and fake pain, but the key discriminator was the fl ow of the movement, which machines pick up pretty easily, where humans (don't)," he says, citing other studies. Once the mathematical model is developed, the HR applications of this tool could include recruit- ment, in terms of screening job candidates, or workers' compen- sation, when it comes to doctors discerning if employees are truly experiencing pain, says Lee. "I'm pretty sure the accuracy rates will be far better than us, like HR people, sitting in front of the interviewee and looking at their facial expressions." Any tool that helps with the screening process is appreciated, says Trish Dehmel, managing di- rector of CSI, an investigative ser- vices company, in Halifax. "We believe the lie detector or the polygraph... because it's a prov- en technology, a proven tool that can be used to determine truth. Now, if this computer tool was as good as that, then certainly it would be extremely benefi cial when you are interviewing someone." But jurisdictions such as Ontar- io prohibit the use of something that's equivalent to a lie detec- tor in employment, according to Christina Hall, a partner in the la- bour and employment law group at Fasken Martineau in Toronto. "Most would see that as an in- vasion of personal privacy," she says. "In Ontario, employers are prohibited from asking for it and employees are granted the right to refuse to engage in that. And, of course, there's remedies under the act if an employer violates, which could be compensation. It could also be an order to actually hire or reinstate someone." Employers in other jurisdic- tions with privacy legislation, such as British Columbia and Quebec — as well as federally regulated employers covered by the Personal Information Protec- tion and Electronics Documents Act (PIPEDA) — would struggle to justify that type of collection as being reasonable for the pur- poses of assessing somebody for employment, says Hall. " ere's less invasive measures at your fi ngertips to arguably get at the same information." e technology does have pri- vacy issues, says Lee, so it would require some kind of consent from the interviewee. But even the act of asking for permission could act as a deterrent, he says. But privacy analysis is a multi- step process where an employer has to prove a number of things, says Hall. "Just getting somebody's con- sent isn't suffi cient if what you're doing isn't reasonable in the fi rst place, so getting consent is only one element of a larger package to prove compliance with privacy legislation." To defend the use of such tech- nology, an employer would have to prove it was accurate and reli- able through scientifi c evidence, says Hall. "All of that is a lot of eff ort to go through when, arguably, you have other, more traditional, more accepted forms of background checking at your fi ngertips that you could perhaps enhance or strengthen to get at the kinds of information that you're looking at without opening the door to, frankly, the legal quagmire that you would let in if you started us- ing this kind of technology — nev- er mind the message it's sending to people sitting across the table." It's not exactly the most wel- coming message an employer can send in an interview process, she says, "putting somebody under, quite literally, some form of elec- tronic microscope." But it's so hard to hire the right people now and employers need all the help they can get, says Dehmel. "You have to remember to weight all your tools, so that you don't give one more weight per- haps than it deserves. It's still a game of interviewer and the in- terviewee and how they connect in that interview, it really is." Credit: Byggam.se/Shutterstock FEATURES Detecting the TRUTH BACKGROUND SCReeNiNG The "Mouth of Truth" in Rome is a legendary lie detector — dating back to the Middle Ages. Legend has it that if you told a lie with your hand in its mouth, it would be bitten off. Technology has evolved a bit since that time, and computer-vision systems can now detect real versus faked facial expressions better than humans.

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