The technology and the feelings seem to be two concepts far away from each other but ever more linked by the scientific progress. The feelings make for us a crucial role: they are considered like the only element that differentiates the human from the other living beings and from the technology. We are so proud of their exclusivity and of their value that we believe that they are the richness that guarantee to the human race its actual status. Everyone of us likes to think to have a cognitive control on what the other see. But if we find out that the new technology can fell the emotions? If we find out that they can recognize the honesty of a smile? Have you ever heard about the empathic technology?
Our feelings
The connections that allow to fully know us
It can seem really creepy, but it isn’t inevitably like this. The neurologists spent years to study the neurological connections that create our perceptual realities. The technology can understand what we feel, it is able to do it for examle by analyzing our eyeballs. Our vision system put us completly exposed, and not only. When our brain is under stress, the nervous system automatically create a pupils’ dilation, and viceversa.
But even our whole body shows clearly what we feel. We are not talking about the decryption of the body’s language, perceptible even by another human or by just a camera. We are talking about the phenomenon that let our body irradiate our emotional changing. It is possible to obtain infrared thermic pictures of our body, where we can see the red areas (hot areas) and the blue ones (cold areas). The dynamic distribution of the colours shows our stress’ changes, the job’s quantity that our brain is facing whit at that moment, the level of attention and interst during a conversation. Even the chimical composition of our breath transmits our feelings.
Compounds like the acetone, isoprene and carbon dioxide change their characteristics proportionally with the increasing of the heart rates and the strengthening of the muscles: all of this happens only inside us, at the external there isn’t any changing. The thing that we say and how we say it tells more of what we can believe. The devices that we already have in our homes could, if we allow them to do it, to give us an accurate and priceless vision of ourselves.
The empathic technology
All of those behavioural and emotional cognitive approaches are already used, for example, by international companies in the recruiting’s field through video-interviews able to scan our eyes’ moves and analyze our tone of voice and allow so a characterization of a potential future professionist. It is really important the scientific-medical approach. Many studies proved that sickness like dementia and diabete can affect the spectral colouring of our voice. For example, through the smart technology, using an analysis of our vocal tone, it is possible to reveal the Alzheimer 10 years before than with the traditional medical diagnosis. Our technology knows what we are feeling. Through this process even us will now something more about ourselves and the surrounder.
The technology and the feelings together give life to the new “empathic technology“. If we will accept the idea to become empathic through the new technolgies, this will help to pass the discrepancy between the emotionality and the cognition. In this way we could change the way to tell about ourselves. We could allow a better future, connecting ourselves, through the technology, to a deeper level. We know that, every technology can be used both positively and negatively. Trasparency and functional regulation are essential for create this. But the benefit that the empatich technology can bring to our lifes are comparable with our moral questions? And not to choose the empathic technology, will mean lose an important part of our feelings?
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