Coming soon to a mirror near you... false (manipulative) mirrors

[Tab]

Fake Mirrors May Soon Ensnare Shoppers in Web of Lies

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a liar mirror that makes you look happier than you are. The device, called “incendiary reflection,” “works with a camera to track a person’s facial expressions in real time.” It then tweaks those expressions, subtly lifting the corners of the mouth up and crinkling the area around the eyes to approximate the beginnings of a Duchenne smile. You look in the “mirror” and see an incrementally happier you, which kicks off a cascade of happiness and ultimately makes you buy things.

The looking glass of fraud relies on facial feedback theory, or the idea that the road between emotions and facial expressions goes both ways. To wit: How you arrange your countenance informs how you feel; forcing your face into a grin can actually brighten your mood (although being told to do so will probably just infuriate you). According to Tara Kraft, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas who has authored studies on facial feedback theory, the webcam of lies might work by tapping into our impulse to mimic others’ facial expressions. We observe a joyful visage (our own) and adjust our smiling muscles to match it, which makes us happy. (Option two is that we just like looking at smiley people—no mimicry required.)

In one study, Japanese researchers led by Shigeo Toshida asked 21 volunteers to perform a neutral task and then to rate how they felt while gazing into the pane of falsification. (They did not know it was in the middle of falsifying.) When confronted by slightly happier images of themselves, the volunteers reported a greater sense of wellbeing. The video was also adjusted to modify faces in a gloomier direction—perhaps not surprisingly, people encountering more rainy-day reflections told researchers they were unhappy.

What about the “buying things” part? Each person was also given a scarf to wear and placed in front of either a regular mirror or a speculum of dissemblance. Volunteers who saw altered, sunnier figments staring back at them were more likely to be enchanted by the scarf than were members of the control group. Toshida and his colleagues believe their device, given dominion over a dressing room, “could be used to manipulate consumers’ impressions of products,” persuading people to buy clothes they might otherwise turn down.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/07/incendiary_reflection_mirrors_make_you_look_happier_than_you_are_so_you.html

[arcane1]

1. Reminds me of the "skinny mirror" on Seinfeld.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

2. A good excuse for Nat King Cole

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

[immoderate]

4. Written by Charles Chaplin!

--imm

[Shrike47]

3. I'm waiting for the taller, thinner, younger mirror. That would be a happy mirror!

[Scuba]

7. Just hang around with short, chubby, old people.

[SoCalDem]

5. Just take an honest friend shopping with you

One who will say ...

"That makes you look faaaaaat"..

or

"That is Uggggggly "

[Cronus Protagonist]

6. Wouldn't fool me at all

I've never looked at myself in a mirror when buying clothes. All I'm concerned about is if the clothing fits.

[enlightenment]

8. Speculum of dissemblance

sounds like it came straight out of a Harry Potter novel.

Love the term - not so much the mirror.

[silverweb]

9. Creepy!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Clothes shopping is something I already hate with a passion. Something like this would make me avoid it even more, if that's possible.

A current project is to find thrift store clothes with beautiful fabrics and remake them into something I want to wear, so this will spur me to work a little harder at it.

[MisterP]

10. like Elaine Benes, we will now always be on the hunt for a nonpartisan mirror