From Detection to Exposure: Critical Perspective of Emotion Awareness Technology Ohoud Alharbi 1 , and Sunakshi Gupta 2 1 Department of Electric Engineering and Computer Science, University of California Irvine, CA, USA 2 Department of Information and Computer Science, University of California Irvine, CA, USA Abstract One of the most distinguishing traits in humans is the ability to experience emotions. It took a lot of time for scientists to accept and acknowledge the importance of emotions in human life. After this importance has been acknowledged, researchers are trying to identify, measure and expose these emotions. This is being done through a range of newly found emotion detection devices. These devices measure and record various physiological parameters. The quantified data is used to identify the current emotion. Depending on these emotions, specific applications are invoked. Sometimes these applications involve exposing users’ emotion to third parties. Emotional exposure can have varied consequences. This paper analyzes the implications of this exposure. Keywords: Emotions, Emotion Contagion, Affective Computing, Wearable devices. 1. Introduction to Emotions An emotion can be defined as a “set of reactions that a human being has, when facing several situations” [13]. These reactions are influenced by an individual’s personality i.e., the way they observe the world and their emotional state when those situations take place [5]. Until now, emotions have been considered non-scientific. They are assumed to be opposite of reasoning and there is no room for them in science. However, there is a small group of emotions that are exempted from this thinking. They are referred to as “non-interfering emotions”. It is assumed that all emotions except these ones interfere in scientific processes. Non-interfering emotions are the only ones that are considered to be useful in science. That been helpful to scientific processes, for example curiosity that drives scientific inquiry, frustration from failure and pleasure from discovery [14]. This was the scientific outlook on emotions. However, more recent experiments show that emotions play an important role in rational decision- making, in human perception process, and particularly in interaction and intelligence [4]. They are considered to be pulling the levers of our lives. Experiments conducted by neurologists prove that emotions imbue scientifically sound and rational decisions. In his study, Richard Cytowic (1995) states “Authorities in neuroanatomy have confirmed that the hippocampus is a point where everything converges. All sensory inputs, external and visceral, must pass through the emotional limbic brain before being redistributed to the cortex for analysis, after which they return to the limbic system for a determination of whether the highly-transformed, multi-sensory input is salient or not.” [4]. Generally, the limbic region is considered responsible for managing emotions, and the cortex is responsible for logical decisions. However, experiments show that the limbic system influences human perception more than the cortex [3]. In these experiments, synthetic experiences were studied by monitoring the neurons in the brain. Results showed high activation of the limbic region. This indicates that limbic system plays an important role in sensory perception. Johndon-Laird and Shafir showed that if a person has to choose one out of a million paths and there is no time to actually evaluate all of the paths, then emotions come to the rescue. As a result, emotions help in learning the biases that lead to rational responses [2]. For instance, studies on frontal lobe disorders revealed that people suffering from this disorder have a hard time making small decisions. Due to the affected connections between the cortex and the limbic region it becomes really difficult for them to combine emotional responses with their rational decision-making [3]. For a long time researchers believed that categorization of emotions is an impossible task because people express themselves differently. However in the second half of the twentieth century, many studies including the famous IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 6, November 2015 ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784 www.IJCSI.org 72 2015 International Journal of Computer Science Issues