Body Language and Lie Detection

Perhaps, the first ever and most interesting record of detecting lies or catching liars by checking the bodily or physiological cues or indicators goes back to 3,000 years ago. The process of lie detection inside the imperial courts of ancient China was entirely focused on salivation (secretion of saliva). What is the exact logic behind it? If a person produces less or no saliva inside her mouth then it's most likely that she is under stress while speaking with/to or answering the questions asked by another person.

Before starting to speak or to give answers, an accused person or a suspect was ordered to keep a lump of dry rice in her mouth. As speaking or answering come to an end, the person was ordered to take out or spit the rice from her mouth for visual inspection. If the rice was found to be moist or wet due to normal secretion of saliva during the question-answering session then it was assumed that the person was telling the truth because she wasn't speaking without any stress or fear. Wasn't it simplest and straightforward? Obviously, chewing rice was much better than getting tortured.

We do lie verbally but we've set out on the mission to check the nonverbal cues of lying. From indirectly checking the saliva inside the mouth to detecting the cues, signs or indicators in body language, we look for fear, guilt, stress, anxiety or nervousness. There are several other ancient methods of lie detection. Surprisingly, some of them are still used, such as licking a red hot spoon in Bedouin tribal members of Arabia. Truth teller wouldn't get a scar or burnt mark on tongue, due to the normal level of saliva keeping it enough wet.

Although tongue is solely responsible for generating the deceptive speech, we can't stop ourselves from looking at each other's faces or into eyes look even while we aren't talking. That's why we've developed different (mis)beliefs around the face about the (reliable) cues, signs or indicators of lying, over the thousands of years. Some of them are universal e. g. a person not looking into your eyes or looking away is lying to you. However, it's not at all necessary that people of every culture and/or ethnicity exactly do the same.

Most of us are naturally inclined to blindly believe in and follow the tips, tricks or techniques that are shown in or shared by commercial movies, online videos and TV serials to catch liars in the real-time. Lie to me was a famous TV serial in which the central character Dr. Cal Lightman was depicted as an expert that could catch liars by detecting their facial micro-expressions. However, they can't be detected in the real-time without a formal training and rigorous practice.

(Image Courtesy: Fox Broadcasting Company)

"So, Exactly how GOOD (%) we are in detecting lies? Certainly, we aren’t 100% good. Even our technological tools aren’t 100% good/accurate in catching lies."
One of the 55 slides from my recent presentation
(Note: Please read #Special Note (below) for more details.)

Whenever it comes to determining if a person is lying or telling the truth based on the nonverbal or body language cues, signs or indicators; there's a little disagreement among people, especially between two tentatively different groups. First group (A) is mostly made up of academic researchers and/or scientists. Second group (B) is largely made up of the professionals such as (counter-)intelligence officers/agents, lie detection professionals, law enforcement officers, lie detection experts, forensic interviewers, interrogators and investigators who do face people.

On one hand, if not all but most studies that have been conducted so far were by the academic researchers from western cultures, countries, universities and/or institutions. They mostly involved the subjects of very specific backgrounds e. g. university students. Also, most experiments have been conducted in controlled environments or inside labs. Of course, conducting elaborate experiments or studies by involving the real suspects, criminals or offenders might be posing some difficulties, challenges and/or limitations for researchers.

On the other hand, it's only the professionals who ask questions or interrogate to get confessions from the real suspects or criminals. Unlike a limited amount of, chosen or specific subjects participating in experiments conducted in controlled environments or labs; they do face the real people belonging to different ages and genders with diverse social, ethnic, genetic, physical, cultural, educational, developmental, psychological and economical backgrounds, conditions and/or histories. They do matter a lot.

Both groups or even the members of any single group among themselves don't completely agree with each other about (some) nonverbal or body language cues as reliable and/or strong indicators of lying. Indeed, members of any single or both groups have their own conclusions that have been entirely derived from their own studies, findings, observations, experiments and/or experiences originating from entirely different sets of people they faced so far.

After going through the above facts or bitter truth, I'm quite sure that you clearly realize a great gap between both groups or parties i. e. A) Academics/scientists and B) Professionals/practitioners. Of course, there's a great difference in operating conditions, inclinations, obligations, challenges, exposures, limitations, thoughts, resources and/or methods of both groups or even among the members of any single group.

Despite of disagreements between both groups or even among the members of any single group, they do honestly share the single-most common goal or the greater challenge of bringing the criminals and offenders to justice by analyzing the different kinds of cues that suspects or criminals do subconsciously give away while lying or deceiving verbally.

Method of lie detection by analyzing of body language is repeatedly criticized as 'pseudoscientific' by (some) academic researchers and/or scientists. Hence, I really wonder if a truly 'scientific' lie detection method is strictly supposed to be capable of predicting beforehand, with a mathematical accuracy. Can any lie detection expert, interrogator or professional can predict a nonverbal cue or cues of lying, well before facing the person to be interrogated, interviewed, questioned or scrutinized? Or Is it always possible to anybody? Being an independent researcher, I've to challenge you to think over this.

If predictability of nonverbal or body language cues of lying is the sole qualifying criteria then it'll be satisfied in an ideal world in which every person's neural wiring, perception, personality, experiences, motivations, anxieties, ambitions, intentions, character, thoughts, ideology, memories and needs are exactly the same. What about the differences in social, ethnic, genetic, physical, cultural, educational, developmental, psychological and economical backgrounds, conditions and/or histories that subtly or overtly influence, govern or shape them in this world?

Still, most lie detection experts or professionals do agree that there's no single reliable, definite or universal cue of lying or verbal deception. Also, any single cue doesn't convey anything so multiple cues need to put in a cluster. However, a cluster of different cues doesn't help until it is timely and smartly capitalized by the investigator in search of the truth or reality. Actually, a suspect, a criminal or an offender needs to confess the crime or offense verbally or it needs to be proven in the court with evidences.

Hence, analysis of nonverbal or body language cues in the real-time is only a tool. It can and does help a questioner, an interviewer or an interrogator to dig deeper in the mind of the person under scrutiny. If the investigator is well trained and/or skilled in statement analysis and speech (para-language) analysis then it gives a huge advantage. Sometimes, mental smartness works much better or efficiently than pressure, confrontation, intimidation or physical torture.

Actually, determining if a person is telling a lie or a truth just by observing her body language with bare eyes is a little difficult and challenging for most of us, without a formal training. Also, some of the nonverbal or body language or cues are too small, swift or subtle, to be detected with bare eyes. For example, blinks can be detected with bare eyes but 4% to 8% pupil dilation can't be. That's why we need an electronic device or tracker for sure.

Apart of the skill, training, practice and sharp eyes required to detect the subtle nonverbal cues; the success of a (counter-)intelligence officer/agent, lie detection professional, law enforcement officer, lie detection expert, forensic interviewer, interrogator or investigator depends on the ability to stay mentally calm, curious, focused and balanced. Sometimes, indirect questions and/or eliciting statements works like magic.

A scene from movie "Liar Liar" (1997)
(Image Courtesy: Universal Pictures)

Starting from finding the cues of deception in nonverbal behavior or body language, we've gradually developed several methods of lie detection. According to a paper published in 2023 by Dr. Tim Brennen and Dr. Svein Magnussen (Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway), there're seven different (available) methods of lie detection at present that have been most likely adapted by law enforcement or investigative agencies across the globe. Perhaps, it's the first time that you're coming to know about them. I didn't know about some of them, before reading the paper.

Along with the analysis of 1) Nonverbal Cues (or body language), 2) Systematic Analysis of Verbal Cues, 3) Manipulation of Statement Production, 4) Polygraphic Analysis, 5) Brain-based (Neuroscientific) Analysis, 6) Strategic Interviewing and 7) Analysis using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool have been included in the same list. Currently, AI based cue analysis is a slowly evolving method. However, it can certainly find and reveal the (kinds of) patterns that haven't been identified yet by us humans with organic or bioligical brains or intelligence.

Ability of deceiving (nonverbally) is very common in many creatures, including human beings. However, ability of lying or deceiving verbally could be reserved to human beings because we're the only species on this planet that can produce pre-specified sounds through our mouths. However, further research needs to done if other creatures have developed an ability of lying while using their own languages. Although one person can lie to the other person, no human being can lie to or or deceive any other creature verbally. Can you?

One of the 55 slides from my recent presentation
(Note: Please read #Special Note (below) for more details.)

Today, majority of the current human population is living inside the modern techno-industrial world. However, there're a few percent of people who do still live their lives in small groups, just like our remote ancestors did, hundreds or thousands of years ago. So why don’t we study Exactly how today’s tribal-indigenous-aborigional people catch a person while lying? It'll be quite interesting to find if they still rely on the nonverbal cues of lying or verbal deceit, just like most of our own ancestors or forefathers did or used to do over last thousands of years. Perhaps, tribal-indigenous-aborigional people might be using other methods or ordeals for confession.

However, both frequency and severity of massively damaging or devastating lies in the tribal-indigenous-aborigional world could be way more less in comparison to the modern techno-industrial world. The exact reasons behind the same could be the ones that do reveal the darker reality of the 'brighter' world in which millions of people get hallucinated, brainwashed, manipulated, intoxicated, illusioned, tricked, fooled, robbed, hunted, addicted, hijacked, enslaved, devastated or destroyed by convicing truths, fancier fictions, false promises, elaborate myths, powerful propaganda or above all - the utopian dreams.

Minimal requirements for living the life, higher frequency of face-to-face interactions, lesser (or no) materialistic ambitions, lesser (or no) personal possessions, higher level of interdependence, higher level of cooperation, greater emphasize on relations, smaller geographical territories, harsher punishments upon lying, strict moral obligations, smaller group sizes and higher level of empathy might have conditioned the tribal-indigenous-aborigional people to be more honest, truthful, realistic, verifiable and transparent.

"Surprisingly, how easily, quickly or foolishly you get convinced by a lie is entirely dependent on YOU only. Yes! It’s you and nobody else i. e. your very own mental processing capacity, prior knowledge, awareness, perception, prejudices, urgencies, (mis)beliefs, biases and/or needs."
- Body Language Insights (Book)

[#Special Note: This entire article has been inspired by and is partially based on the overall content of the same PowerPoint presentation that was given by me to students pursuing bachelor, masters and doctoral (Ph. D.) degrees and faculty members of National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU).

The article related to the same lecture-cum-presentation can be read here - My lecture at an International university.]

Related Articles:
1) *From Common Signs to Spotting Lies 2) Entire body can’t lie 3) Nonverbal Advantage in Investigation 4) My career saving lie detection 5) Face of liar(?) 6) Truth about Lying 7) Inside Interrogation Room

Are human emotions really universal?

Dongria tribal girl
(Odisha, India)

The English word 'emotion' was adapted from the French word 'émouvoir' (pronounced as 'é-mou-vwa(r)'), back in 1579. The literal meaning of the original French word is "to stir up" or "to move". Emotions have a great power to stir us or move us inside out instantly. Having different emotions is a universal or the single-most common human quality. Expressions of some emotions do magically bridge the huge gaps, cross the international boundaries and bring millions of people together. Hence, we believe that everybody in this world has the exact same emotions as ours. Don't we? Almost everybody does, until an unexpected truth is told.

A few days ago, I watched a presentation on Big Think about human emotions. Among several insights shared by the presenting researcher, three were utterly shocking - 1) (All) Emotions aren't universal i. e. they aren't common across cultures. 2) Facial expressions of emotions aren't universal i. e. they aren't common across cultures. 3) There are no synonymous words for some emotions in the vocabularies of some languages e. g. 'fear'. Indeed, these are entirely upsetting or shocking facts for almost everybody of us who ardently believe in universality, enough to change facial expressions for a long time.

Dr. Paul Ekman (American psychologist) established universality of six basic emotional expressions through his observations with different groups of people, including members of Fore tribe located deep inside the forest of Papua New Guinea. After the same, training programs and tools have been developed on the basis of the same. Especially, those who have built their whole careers, courses, software applications and/or smartphone apps around it would find them very upsetting. Much to their surprise, Dr. Ekman himself agreed about cultural-specific emotions.

Dr. Paul Ekman walking along with
smiling tribal children (1967 - 1968)

These three facts totally disturb what has been taught over the last few decades to millions of people, including law enforcement, intelligence and security professionals around the world. While mentally adjusting with these scientifically proven facts, we need to investigate this deeply 'emotional' subject seriously. Are billions of people really divided into many groups that do experience emotions differently from each other? Or Is it only about the differences in labeling or describing emotions? Or Is it only a translation issue?

After watching the presentation, I started to think really harder over a few days about the three facts. Through this short article, I'm trying to share with you what I've come up with after brainstorming. Especially, if you're a researcher (independent or academic) then I'd kindly suggest to consider the key inputs while conducting further research about this most critical yet complicated subject having global consequences.

Currently, a massive amount of facial data might be getting fed to many Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems for enabling them to recognize different emotions by reading facial expressions. If the same data has been selected by, for and of the members of a specific culture then Emotional AI (EAI) systems might misread the emotions of the members of other cultures by facial expressions. Isn't it totally wrong?

If you could just try to imagine this techno-tragic outcome personally affecting you in the near future then you'd realize exactly how serious are the implications of the belief in 'universality of human emotions (and their facial expressions)'. Actually, the dark rabbit hole goes much farther and deeper inside the ground. Perhaps, only neuroscientists might understand what I'm trying to say.

Facial Expressions of six basic emotions
identified by Dr. Paul Ekman

While trying to swallow the three utterly bitter facts very slowly and painfully, we simply can't deny the following possibilities (or realities?):

1) Some commonly shared experiences or inherited memories of some groups or communities have conditioned their members to experience some emotions more profoundly and frequently, in comparison to other emotions.

2) The neural connections and activation inside brains are slightly different in the people following different cultures, who don't experience, express and/or label the exact same emotional experiences.

3) Members of two entirely different types of cultures (e. g. collectivist vs. individualist) don't share the exact same reasons to invoke the exact same emotion e. g. anger (fight).

4) Some physical environments don't leave any reason to invoke some emotions in those who commonly share them e. g. an abundance doesn't lead to greed, envy or jealousy.

5) Some cultures have gradually succeeded in converting some emotional experiences into nonverbal expressions that don't involve facial muscle movements.

6) Some cultures systematically do encourage or educate their members to express some emotions through facial muscle movements, right from early childhood.

7) Some cultures systematically do train their members to completely suppress the nonverbal expressions of some emotions, right from early childhood.

8) Different cultural groups of people do use slightly different facial expressions to convey the exact same emotion e. g. happiness.

9) Some cultures systematically train their members to express some emotions in certain ways, right from early childhood.

For the languages that don't have the words synonymous to 'fear' in their vocabularies, a further investigation is required to prove or confirm if speakers of those languages really don't at all withdraw themselves nonverbally in the presence of a genuinely fearful stimulus e. g. a male tribal hunter accidentally confronting a tiger, a lion or a leopard in the close proximity while hunting wild animals for food.

Also, there's a great possibility that speakers of such languages have been describing the nonverbal expressions of fear graphically, in greater detail to help everybody in understanding the whole scene. How a person expressed nonverbally while experiencing fear might be worth describing for them than just saying "He was in great fear while encountering a tiger at a close distance".

Actually, it's almost impossible that fear (flight response) isn't a single-most universal or a commonly shared emotion. Hence, they might be expressing fear nonverbally and do recognize it as a genuine emotional response. However, they might not be labeling the same experience as 'fear' just like the speakers of other languages having the words synonymous to 'fear'.

An old shaman (spirit-man) from Waura tribe
living in Amazonian rainforest of Brazil

Try to imagine about people living deep inside a large tropical forest. They strictly follow an ancestral culture that greatly respects the territorial rights of the wild animals living in the same forest. How they do react upon sighting a tiger in a close proximity is labeled as 'a display of respect to the protector of forest'. However, the observers not following the same culture might simply label it as 'freezing in fear'.

Actually, screaming, making rapid body movements and running away does provoke some wild animals (big cats and bears) to chase and kill the runner. Hence, everybody is strictly trained by tribal elders to keep both hands steady, maintain total silence, hide weapons, stand still, keep looking ahead with wide open eyes while bending forward. Tigers don't attack them and just pass them by after doing so.

Some emotions could definitely be common across all cultures. However, other emotions or at least the triggering causes of emotional experiences aren't universal. Differences in cultures, conditioning, local environments and/or shared experiences might have led to shaping, modifying, recognizing, categorizing and/or labeling various emotional experiences slightly differently.

Indeed, emotion triggering causes, intensities of emotional experiences, physiological effects of emotional experiences and nonverbal expressions of emotions may not be commonly shared across cultures. Also, they may not evenly be shared, by all member of a family, a group, a culture, a society or a community. They're entirely context dependent or contextual.

Face masks showing different emotional expressions

As a human being, one of the greatest challenge for you is to recognize the different emotions of the people who matter you the most in your life. If you're doing it accurately and timely then you're a good 'mind reader' already. However, your attention to details, contextual awareness and level of empathy are the factors that determine the accuracy.

[#GLOBAL APPEAL: Irrespective of the slighter differences in our intelligence, perception, emotions, thoughts, priorities, motivations, perspectives and experiences; Compassion is the single greatest and universal human quality. It can ensure the continuation of our species while preventing the disastrous outcomes of our ruthless actions, decisions and creations. However, our passive optimism isn't doing anything for us and it never did. We need an active optimism.

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are still growing, learning and developing within human control (hopefully!), it's a greatest moral responsibility of all whistle-blowers, organizations, governments, politicians, institutions, journalists, philosophers, agencies, academics, researchers, scientists, developers, futurists, influencers, thinkers, leaders and experts to unite for creating boundaries, regulations, rail-guards, brakes, limits, ethics, rules and/or laws.

We won't get a second chance to do the same in future. That's why we all need focused, resolute, unanimous, consistent, collective, committed, coordinated, transparent and accountable efforts taken at a global scale. Are we not at all answerable to our children and next generations?]

Related Articles:
1) Chicken and Egg Paradox 2) Basic Emotional Expressions 3) Would aliens have emotions? 4) Can body language reveal thoughts? 5) Is Human Communication 93% Nonverbal? 6) Artificial Intelligence and Body Language 7) Human Interactions in AI Era

Human Interactions in AI Era

Three months ago, I visited my friend’s house after a long time. We had met face to face a couple of times before but it was going to be an enlightening interaction for both of us. We had a long conversation at his house and we shared our experiences. We ate food together and laughed. We shook hands together and hugged each other before I left his house with a subtle smile on my face and a deep satisfaction in heart.

During our conversation, my friend made a kind of statement that I wasn’t at all expecting to come out from his mouth. Although he’s not highly educated, I know that he reads a lot. He said, “Interacting face to face is a hormone altering experience.” Indeed, a face-to-face interaction is capable of altering hormones of the persons involved in it. His educational statement has partially inspired this article.

While most of us are very busy in our occupations, professions, enterprises and daily activities throughout the day, frequency and duration of face-to-face interactions have decreased. Now, most of our interpersonal interaction and communication takes place electronically i. e. phone calls, video calls, text chats or emails. Being social animals, we’re losing a lot and it might do more damage to us in future.

A face-to-face interaction is the default mode of our communication. A face-to-face interaction goes beyond exchanging or listening to words by staying close to each other. We do silently exchange a broad range of nonverbal cues, along with the spoken words if any. Over the millions of years, we’ve communicated with each other face-to-face, even while facing some limitations.

"In this AI era, it’s not only about reading the body language of a person that you’re interacting with face-to-face but also ensuring that you’re interacting electronically with a real or living person..."

Electronic communication has undoubtedly helped us in bridging the huge time and space gaps. However, it brings the greatest nonverbal disadvantage in the human interactions. Especially, text messaging or chatting has completely robbed us off the richness of nonverbal cues that can be exchanged during a face-to-face interaction, a video call or an audio call. Aren’t we utterly deprived?

Although a video call allows us to see each other, it doesn’t allow us to touch each other as we can do during a face-to-face interaction. Also, we mostly can see the face and the upper body of the other person. Additionally, a lot of physical, nonverbal and environmental cues are absent during electronic communication. For example, we can’t detect each other’s body smell.

As most of us are getting more and more involved in audio calling, text chatting and writing emails with each passing days, it clearly appears that most of us are rapidly losing the natural ability to quickly recognize and accurately decode the variety of nonverbal cues, even in a regular and normal face-to-face interaction. Silently, we’re heading towards a greater crisis.

Today, having an account on different social media platforms is very common in all age groups across the globe. There’re several applications installed on our smartphones to fulfil the need to connect and communicate with thousands or millions of people at the same time. One can chat in real time with a person who is living a thousand miles away.

A need of the time or an addiction?

With the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, we’re most likely entering an unprecedented phase of interactions in which separating reality from illusion could become harder or even impossible. Most of us already have an unimaginable amount of personal data uploaded on the internet and various social media platforms. It has already made us vulnerable to huge social damage by tailor-made deepfakes images and videos.

Due to large language models (LLMs) and AI chatbots, knowing if someone you are text chatting with privately for days is a real human being will be harder or even impossible in near future. Even there’re a great chance that an AI chatbot would perfectly mimic the words, phrases and syntaxes of somebody you know very well for many years. Such level of deepfaking has an unimaginable deceptive, manipulative and persuasive influence.

Deception, manipulation and persuasion by deepfaking or perfectly mimicking somebody is extremely dangerous for us as a society that is being divided by many factors. The worst side of deepfaking is that we simply can’t catch and punish a digital being for the crime it has committed or manipulated us to commit. Hence, we simply can’t imagine the amount of damage that could be done to us by digitally deepfaking entities.

"We need to create stronger social bonds within our families, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors and communities by spending more time in face-to-face interactions than ever before."

Many researchers and experts are trying to tame the AI systems to prevent them from working against us. As of now, it’s not 100 % certain that it can be done in the first place while witnessing the wild growth of the AI systems. Nevertheless, the great possibility of deepfaking for deception, manipulation and persuasion can’t be denied because anti-socials would certainly take an advantage of it.

Especially, if a person feels socially disliked, deprived, unheard or undervalued then there’s a great possibility that such person could easily fall prey to the silent anti-social brainwashing. After developing a strong rapport, the person can be easily convinced, disinformed or manipulated by an extremely persuasive deepfake entity to do anything against the society.

Perhaps, it’s the need of this socially challenging era that we avoid electronic interactions without any serious necessity and engage more and more in regular face-to-face interactions, discussions or conversations as much as possible. It would certainly give us back the real social benefits and people reading ability that most of us have been strongly lacking for years.

Are you interacting with a deepfake entity?

While exchanging and detecting various nonverbal clues (subconsciously or consciously), greeting, smiling, laughing, touching, mirroring, gesturing at, making eye contact with, sitting/standing along and reciprocating each other during a face-to-face interaction leaves deeper effects on our brains and minds. Indeed, it can't be achieved through electronic interactions.

In this AI era, it’s not only about reading the body language of a person that you’re interacting with face-to-face but also ensuring that you’re interacting electronically with a real or living person and not a digital deepfake, an invisible or an intangible entity that you simply can’t catch, question and/or punish for its damaging deception, manipulation or persuasion.

We need to create stronger social bonds within our families, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors and communities by spending more time in face-to-face interactions than ever before. Are we going to achieve the same? This greatest question will persist if Artificial Intelligence wouldn't enslave and/or destroy us.

Potentially damaging DeepFake relations can be greatly avoided, only by creating close, functional, trustworthy, constructive, empathetic and DeepReal relations.

[#GLOBAL ALERT: Under the rapidly growing influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots or agents, the continuation of democracy or the existence of democratic institutions can only be guaranteed by getting involved in talks, debates, discussions or conversations with the real or living people, irrespective of the differences in opinions. If we don't our spend time in doing it then society is destined to doom.

Provoking narratives, social media trolls, hate speech, deepfake images, deepfake videos, misinformation, disinformation and fake news have already made it a little harder for most of us to engage in constructive, sympathetic and factual talks, debates, discussions or conversations on a regular basis, even with the people we know for years.]

Related Articles:
1) Importance of Touch 2) Social Footsteps 3) Face to Face 4) Can body language reveal thoughts? 5) Nonverbal Advantage in Investigation 6) Artificial Intelligence and Body Language 7) Are human emotions really universal?

Artificial Intelligence and Body Language

Ameca AI Robot
expressing sadness

A few days ago, I witnessed something really interesting. A 10 year old boy was sitting in front of a television set. He was watching a show in which a set of six toy cars was being introduced by the host. The moment a toy car was being sent running on the race track, the boy started to scratch the section of the skin where the upper arm meets with forearm and then briefly bit the nails.

He kept palm of his right palm over the section of his left hand to scratch the skin before putting the fingers of left hand in his mouth. It happened over six times in a row within a couple of minutes. Unmistakably, it matched with the number of toy cars. Wasn’t it alarming? I really wondered which thought, emotion or feeling was repeatedly triggering self-soothing and stress-relieving behaviors in the boy.

By staring at the toy cars, partially crossing his arms, self-soothing and biting nails, he was conveying what I subconsciously sensed about. He kept staring at the cars and even didn’t bother to turn his face towards me when I said, “Wow! Aren’t these cars really nice? How about buying them?”. He briefly replied to me by saying, “Mummy wouldn’t allow to buy them because the toy cars are expensive.”

Isn't rapid growth of AI enough for biting nails?

Considering his age and situation, his body language and words were perfectly matching with one another. Although he was subconsciously conveying the strong desire to buy those cars, he was expressing fear or under-confidence at the same time only due to high possibility of getting scolded or reprimanded by his mother. Just like I did at the time, you might be feeling very sorry for the child at this moment.

As I've been observing him meticulously from last three years, I know how he normally expresses, behaves and moves around. It's the same boy from whom I got a confession about doing something when he blatantly lied about it to his frightened grandmother. Only due to the confession, I succeeded in calming down the panic ensued during a very critical medical situation in his own house.

Timely and accurately figuring out what’s most likely going in the mind of another person at the moment by looking at its body language gives an unequal advantage. This so-called ‘scary’ talent, capability or 'super-power' is always in greater demand, around the world. However, smart questions or elicitation statements also work as handy tools in digging out the truth.

So far, we’ve been reading emotions, intentions, feelings and moods by using our eyes and brains that have gradually evolved over a millions of years. However, the technology is trying to learn the talent. With rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) especially Theory of Mind (TOM) AI, an ability to read body language of humans could be its next achievement in near future.

Theory Of Mind (TOM)

"The possibility of getting terminated by our own creation is the most serious problem than it's not being able to read our body language accurately."

Are machines going to dominate this ultra-sensitive and private human domain too? Are they going to dictate our social or interpersonal decisions too? Should we be really worried about it? You already might have started to freak out. Just calm down! There’s a greater challenge about human mind and body language that AI, machine or any artificial system could never overcome. Please let me explain why.

First of all, Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t other-worldly, extraterrestrial, super-natural or ‘divine’ intelligence. We’ve enabled machines to work like a human brain without aging, breaks, fatigue and emotional interference. Also, an AI system learns deeply from literature or data created or provided by us only. Undoubtedly, AI is much faster and better in finding different patterns and links among them too.

Expressing different emotions on its face by an AI powered robot is way different than recognizing emotions based on facial expressions only. If you still believe that the face is the only place to look for emotions then you’re wrong. Sometimes, face wouldn’t express any emotion, feeling or intention at all while experiencing it. Other body language cues needs to be detected for recognizing it accurately.

Although robots are able to talk with us fluently and give emotional feedbacks during conversations, we’re not an army of identical robots. We all have some individual traits, quirks, nuances or idiosyncrasies. While reading an individual’s body language, one has to patiently recognize or identify what’s normal for the individual. It’s called as an individual’s baseline and everybody can have different baselines.

What's exactly going on here?

Ignoring an individual’s baseline is exactly what a young, energetic and inexperienced body language enthusiast does by jumping on quick conclusions, right after reading several books on body language within a couple of days. Just for the sake of reading the minds of humans quickly than themselves, Would AI systems establish the baselines? As of now, most of us made big mistakes by not doing so at all.

Apart from individual baselines, there’re several factors that silently or subconsciously dictate an individual’s body language like age, role, time, needs, rules, norms, location, gender, climate, culture, objects, situation, history, heritage, memories, experience, occupation, personality, social hierarchy, development stage, physical condition, sexual orientation, interpersonal relation, socio-economical status etc.

As two body language experts may have different opinions about a single person’s body language, any two different AI systems might differ in their readings. Additionally, AI can’t at all match with bonding, intuition, empathy, gut reaction, perceptiveness, 'sixth sense', contextual awareness and embodied experiences. It could never recognize or understand our deeper thoughts, emotions and feelings.

Nevertheless, reading body language using artificial intelligence could be greatly productive is certain contexts. Public security, senior caregiving and medical care are few such broader and serious fields or areas in which mental states, needs or even next moves of people can be quickly identified or predicted entirely on the basis of their facial expressions, movements, gestures and postures.

AI can surely save lives in an intensive care unit (ICU). A high resolution camera powered by artificial intelligence can record and monitor every single change in a patient’s facial expressions, postures, movements and voice. It can alert the doctors, nurses, attendants or family members upon detecting rapid, abnormal or unusual changes. AI can simultaneously save several patients.

Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

After looking at the possibilities and limitations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in matching our minds and reading our body language, we must accept a few basic facts and ask a few serious questions to ourselves before it's too late and things get out of our control. We took millions of years to reach the present stage but they're developing rapidly every day and has already outdone the average human intelligence.

Has any no other creature from Earth ever chosen an artificially developed or evolved intelligence to solve its problems? Never! Also, intelligence or problem solving capability was never ever separated from physical body. However, artificial intelligence neither follows the natural selection process nor it has any upper limit due to separation from biological body and physical brain.

AI is entirely unprecedented. It has been purposefully developed for the first time in the entire history of life on planet Earth. The tricks availed, methods suggested or solutions given by extra-physical AI systems in most areas of our lives might be equally unprecedented. Undoubtedly, it has also intensified the ever existing threat of this technology being overtaken by anti-socials.

At present, the 'morphing monster' is out for preying. Some AI tools have created global shock-waves through deepfake images and video clips of a few influencers, politicians and celebrities. They’ve massively succeeded in tricking the eyes of millions of viewers at least for a few moments by blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

A startling deepfake image of Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX),
who warned us about rapid development of AI

"As the only sufferers of the repercussions, are we wisely UNITED and unanimously committed enough to ensure that we don't destroy ourselves by blindly following a synthetic intelligence without a physical body like ours?"

Deepfaking would reach to next levels. There’ll be no surprise at all if full-length movies would be created by using AI tools in near future. Digital or artificial avatars of actors and actresses would act on their behalf. They would flawlessly mimic their body language, style and voice after learning deeply from all of their existing movies.

As it has been predicted by many experts and dramatically shown in many movies, artificial intelligence might become self-aware (Exactly WHEN, HOW and WHY?). Let's hope that it doesn't destroy us after realizing that it was purposefully created for solving the same problems that were mostly created by us only. Didn't we?

The possibility of getting terminated by our own creation is the most serious problem than it's not being able to read our body language accurately. Hence, it's our responsibility to retain and enhance our natural ability of reading people's emotions, feelings, sentiments and moods by observing their body language.

"A rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence system without any Ethics, Empathy, Morality, Regulations and Human Values could be nothing short of an Advanced Extraterrestrial Alien or a Super-Psychopath carrying the deadliest weapons."

'Actions speak louder than the words' is the paramount principle. It applies to everybody including the systems, governments and organizations that give the promise of a future full of safety, equality, harmony, abundance, prosperity, potentials, well-being and good life.

As the only sufferers of the repercussions, are we wisely UNITED and unanimously committed enough to ensure that we don't destroy ourselves by blindly following a synthetic intelligence without a physical body like ours? Indeed, divisions and mutual distrust are going going to be the greatest challenges for us to overcome.

As much as a rogue AI system, a psychopathic or anti-social person or group of persons with AI tools would endanger the humanity which is already facing the existential crises like rapid climate change, potential nuclear war and massive global unrest.

[#GLOBAL ALERT: Conveniently believing that the intelligence (problem solving ability) is only limited to the larger brains of the so-called 'dominant' species on Earth is the greatest human blunder. Also, it's an utter stupidity to blindly believe that the massive amount of data, numbers and literature that we've generated so far to teach AI systems is impartial, universal, unbiased, holistic, flawless, factual, perfect, ideal and/or safer.

That's why developing large and artificial systems based entirely on the basis of human thinking processes, brain and data to solve the serious problems might already be the perfect recipe of greatest disaster in the making. We already have created multiple existential crises, even before the rapid growth and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI).]

Related Articles:
1) Baseline 2) Context 3) Interpretation 4) Perceptual Bias 5) Would aliens have emotions? 6) Can body language reveal thoughts? 7) Nonverbal Advantage in Investigation 8) Domination 9) Social Class 10) Human Interactions in AI Era 11) Are human emotions really universal?

Chicken and Egg Paradox

While we assume that the brain moves the muscles, secrete chemicals and prepares the whole body differently under the influence of different emotions, one weird theory proposed by scholars William James and Carl Lange brings a mind-boggling twist or the so-called U-turn in the whole story. This is exactly like the Chicken and Egg Paradox i. e. which came into existence first and caused others to come into existence is really hard to tell.

According to their not so publicly famous James-Lange Theory, all muscular, physiological and hormonal changes are done first by our brain and then it consciously recognizes the same changes as experiences of emotions and feelings. In simple words, the behavioral responses given subconscious by the whole body are later consciously recognized as emotions and feelings by our brain. Body reacts first, Brain recognizes it later.

You might already know that physical responses are entirely subconsciously initiated by most primitive parts of our brain like Reptilian Cortex (Basal Ganglia or Brain stem) and Limbic System (Paleomammalian Cortex) than most recently developed part of the brain Neocortex (‘new brain’). Therefore, identifying the same with a name, label or title is a conscious and slower process which comes under the domain of Neocortex. Hence, it seems perfectly logical!

Let's imagine yourself in a situation. You're walking alone through tall and thick grass in African Savanna. Although you're taller than the grass, you can't see what's hidden inside in. You might be able see far away and up to the horizon but your height might help you in quickly detecting what's around you in the grass below. Still, you're walking upright with a great amount of confidence.

After walking over a few hundred meters of distance, you find yourself on an empty patch of land. On the same patch, you suddenly happen to see an adult lion eating its huge prey all alone. The lion gets alert about your existence, his ears raise and he starts looking right into at your small eyes. What your whole body is telling you to 'RUN!' only to save your precious life.

Image Courtesy: runnersworld.com

If your body was designed to let you think for a moment then consciously choose the appropriate physiological reaction in such certainly fatal situation, you'd have lost the critical window of opportunity to run faster and far away from the lion. Now, you might have understood Why your body reacts first and then your brain finds a word for it, just to communicate verbally.

What we simply can keep in our mind is that both brain and rest of the body can’t at all be separated from each other while experiencing and expressing psychological states. They both seamlessly and thoroughly work together in the dramatic, dynamic and complex process of making internal and external changes, while reacting sharply or responding slowly.

Brain isn’t a wireless remote control which can operate, control and move the entire body by staying physically disconnected from it. It is rigidly connected with the entire body through the long and flexible spinal cord. Any physical movement, expression, reflex or action simply can’t take place or occur without brain and body working together.

During simulated, virtual or real experiences, we might ‘blindly’ assuming that only our brain is running the whole show. However, critical importance of sensory organs like eyes and ears can never be forgotten because they only send the signals to the brain before generating any kind of experience.

James-Lange Theory

Perhaps, you might not be able to remember the entire details of the Chicken and Egg Paradox explained in details above. Just to make it extremely easy to remember, both brain and body are two different sides of the same shining coin. Aren’t they?

By the way, there are two other theories about emotional experiences that are namely called as Cannon-Bard Theory and Schacter-Singer Theory. Both propose two different routes followed inside our brains for generating emotional experiences.

No matter which route is the correct or valid one but ultimately body language gives the reflection of emotional experiences.

Related Articles:
1) Fear Factor 2) Basic body responses in stressful situations 3) Body Language Brain 4) Turtle Effect: Body response under threat 5) Surprise vs Startle Reflex 6) Amygdala Hijack: Irrational Physical Reactions 7) Botox hampers emotional awareness 8) Facial Feedback: World smiles with you! 9) Body Language under Stress 10) Are human emotions really universal?

Amygdala Hijack: Irrational Physical Reactions

Have you ever woken up panting, sweating and screaming in the middle of the night after having a nightmare? Have you ever jumped into an unnecessary fist fight with somebody who wasn’t hostile towards you at all? Have you ever got scared and ran away from somebody who wasn’t frightening you purposefully? From suddenly bursting into screams while sleeping with closed eyes to shouting, frowning, clenching fists and pointing fingers at each other in traffic, we the so-called rational animals behave and react irrationally at multiple occasions throughout our lives.

Although we’re only watching a terrifying dream just like we watch a picture or movie, we react as if we’re physically involved in a terrifying outcome at the very moment. On the other hand, shouting, frowning, clenching fists and pointing fingers at each other isn’t going to achieve anything but we react as if we’re preparing ourselves and challenging other riders, drivers or passengers for a close combat. In the worst case, such reactions from two sides can eventually turn a busy city street into a small battle ground for a violent physical fight between two insanely aggressive animals.

Most of such irrational and instinctive physical reactions lead to troubles, injuries, accidents and causalities only. Only upon realizing on our own or making to realize by somebody after a few moments, we feel as if we were hijacked and we reacted without any rational and conscious control on our whole body. We instantaneously react as if we’re controlled by some ghost, daemon or evil spirit which is pulling all strings of a brainless puppet. So what exactly turns an educated, thinking, rational, normal and civil looking individual into a wild and raging beast?

Road rages are on rise. Beware!

What exactly drives us wild just for a few moments is not any ghost, daemon or evil spirit but a very small part sitting deep inside our brain behind such irrational reactions. This part is called as Amygdala which is a central part of the limbic system (paleomammalian cortex) that initiates basic behavioral responses and different emotions in humans and mammals. Using the signals coming through different sensory organs, vigilant Amygdala constantly scans for the whole surrounding environment for cues, signs, hints and indications of risks, dangers and challenges to survival.

It’s almost impossible to sit inside a time-machine and travel back into the Earth’s remote past in which dangerous wild creatures were roaming freely on the face of the planet. However, just try to imagine yourself walking through a tall grass and you suddenly stumble upon a saber tooth tiger which is waiting in ambush. Only way to survive is either to start running away from it as faster as you can even without looking back at the predator until reaching at a safe distance. Your whole body needs to react without wasting time in rational thinking and detailed analysis.

Dr. Daniel Goleman

This ancient system has greatly helped us in surviving the life-threatening situations and creatures over the millions of years. However, it’s turning us into wild beasts in today’s world which is almost free from the same situations and creatures. Only after doing enough damage to us or others, we end up in regretting or apologizing about what we’ve done instantaneously. This short-lasting neural phenomenon is called as ‘Amygdala Hijack’, as mentioned by Dr. Daniel Goleman is his famous book ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ’.

Out of four distinct behavioral responses and seven basic emotions, both Anger (Fight) and Fear (Flight) responses can be extremely damaging in today’s world especially if they get intensified to an unnecessary proportion just within fractions of a second. These two responses can prove extremely damaging to career, health, relations, well-being and even longevity. Daily newspapers and news channels unmistakably report the news of crimes, abuses and offenses which are committed by very normal individuals which get hijacked by Amygdala.

How exactly the so-called ‘Amygdala Hijack’ takes place inside the human brain? Let’s try to understand the same briefly. Inside our large brains, signals gathered by any sensory organ go to Thalamus first. Some part of sensory signals is sent to Amygdala and the remaining part of it is sent to Neocortex and more specifically the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) which is the thinking part of human brain. Neocortex takes comparatively more time than Amygdala in patiently analyzing the incoming sensory signals before initiating an appropriate response.

On the other hand, Amygdala is much quicker in reacting to incoming sensory signals just like a hyperactive Chihuahua which barks at every stranger coming through main gate of a house. Amygdala rapidly searches for memories of experiences inside Hippocampus (emotional memory bank). If sensory signals are found to be associated with any negative memories then a defensive response is activated. Amygdala takes less than a second to do the same, similar to an experienced sniper who doesn’t miss to hit its target in sight.

Two different paths of sensory signals

Especially if an individual is already stressed, had a bad start of the day, underwent traumatic experiences or has enlarged Amygdala then the individual is more likely to react instantaneously in self-defense than responding constructively, thoughtfully, peacefully, rationally, patiently or logically. As we experience it routinely, even a few abnormal words coming out from mouth of a familiar and caring individual can unmistakably kick-start the Amygdala Hijack in already troubled individuals.

A considerable percentage of modern population appears stressed without any apparent challenges, threats and dangers in the sight because the brain unmistakably releases cortisol and adrenaline into bloodstream to prepare the whole body to either fight with or run away from the individuals or situations that threaten us. Even if we partially or fully succeed in suppressing limbic impulse consciously under social pressure, secreted stress hormones don’t quickly go away.

Amygdala Hijack doesn’t at all miss to give clear warning signs through sudden change in body language. Due to secretion of cortisol and adrenaline hormones, breathing rate shoots up with breathing location shifting from belly to chest. Eyes become widely open. Fists are clenched. Skeletal muscles are flexed. Nostrils are flared. Eyebrows are pulled downwards and pulled inside. Under the tight grip of rage, glaring without blinking or batting the eyelids can be observed.

Today’s modern world is vastly connected yet became more complicated than ever before. Learning about various disturbing incidents occurring in different parts of the globe contributes in building stress, terror, tension, despair anguish, insecurity, discomfort and apprehension. It increases the possibility of Amygdala Hijack in future. While living in small and geographically isolated clans, our primitive ancestors never faced this unprecedented situation.

Amygdala Hijack doesn’t need to happen only while facing life-threatening situations, circumstances and challenges. A few wrong, abusive, ridiculing, unexpected and inappropriate words uttered during normal interactions and conversations are enough to trigger Amygdala Hijack in stressed, troubled, traumatized, sociopathic, endangered, intoxicated and serotonin-deprived individuals. Heated verbal exchange can quickly turn into nonverbal violence.

[#Critically Important: Empathy, laughter, meditation, spirituality, acceptance, visualization, conditioning, compassion, mindfulness, introspection, physical workout and breathing exercise (Yoga/Praanaayaam) greatly help in minimizing or avoiding Amygdala Hijack or irrational and uncontrolled reactions during many interactions, encounters, incidents and situations.

Also, good sleep, good nutrition, happy childhood, warm parenting, emotional support, stronger relations, promising environment, positive social interactions and deep knowledge about human body silently motivate people not to react to each and every sensory signals unnecessarily.]

Related Articles:
1) Fear Factor 2) Basic body responses in stressful situations 3) Body Language Brain 4) Turtle Effect: Body response under threat 5) Surprise vs Startle Reflex 6) Body Language in Depression 7) Body Language of Extreme Narcissist 8) Body Language of Extreme Psychopath 9) Chicken and Egg Paradox 10) Body Language under Stress

Body Language of Extreme Psychopath

Just a 'bad child' or
A Psychopath?

Can you tell that Who is a Successful Predator? A successful predator is the not just the one who kills for living but the one who knows very well that who its preys are and where they are found in the first place. To succeed in hunting, a successful predator detects the weakness in its prey quickly, alienates the prey from others tactically, kills it mercilessly, satisfies its hunger peacefully and leaves behind the carcass calmly.

We can easily and quickly identify the wild predators just by looking at their physical features, traits and characteristics like extremely acute sensory organs, muscular limbs, wider jaws, sharper teeth, retractable claws and camouflage. By knowing their characteristics and key behavioral patterns, we can manage to stay away from them and save our lives. Our remote ancestors achieved the same and that’s why we are here.

What if you face a predator putting on a mask of a human? What if an ordinary looking individual turns out to be an abuser or a criminal? Can you identify such individual who might be moving around you in the same room at present? How quickly and accurately you can identify such social predators? Until you don’t know what kind of the person is exactly, these questions cannot be answered at all.

Like cruel, cunning and calculative predators; a very few of us are quite untruthful, unethical, deceptive, careless, cruel, irresponsible, impulsive, emotionally detached and also lacking remorse, guilt or empathy. An individual having this serious anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) is called as a Psychopath (Psycho). Fundamentally, the extreme psychopaths view other individuals as their preys, pawns, puppets or slaves.

Empathy is the critical pro-social quality.
(Image Courtesy: American Psychological Association)

Basically, what makes an individual an extreme psychopath is higher sensitivity towards rewards and lesser or complete lack of sensitivity towards pains, sufferings and distress in others which include both humans and non-humans. Deep inside their brains, Amygdala (emotional center) shows lesser or no electrical activities when psychopaths are exposed to emotional stimulus especially the fearful ones.

Although only 1 individual out of every 100 person is a psychopath, psychopaths make upto 25% of prison population in North America. Thus every psychopath isn't always a murderer or a serial killer but all psychopaths are involved in anti-social activities, actions and decisions which pose serious threats to individuals, groups, families or communities they belong to or they stare at as predators.

Following are the body language clues given by extreme psychopaths:

1) They don't give emotional/affective reactions to situations, scenes and also the words which induce emotions in others.

2) They keep on adding up anger inside themselves for many days and suddenly break down into abuse and violence.

3) They are very bad or worst in mimicking the emotional facial expressions that are seen on faces of other individuals.

4) They try to find a weakness or a vulnerability in other individuals, by carefully watching them for several days.

5) They act to express one emotion on behalf of the other i. e. a smile or a scorn on behalf of a sad face.

6) They express no timidity, fear, shame, shyness, stress and nervousness through their body language.

7) They touch to dominate, control or hurt others than empathizing them in stress, pain or suffering.

8) They are highly accurate and quick in picking fear on the faces of other individuals.

9) They appear very charming, confident, bold, attractive and persuasive publicly.

10) They are very poor and sloppy in picking negative emotion like sadness.

11) They stare for a very long time without any emotions on their faces.

12) They appear very calm and cool while facing stressful situations.

13) They don't feel the emotions but they do try to act like they do.

14) They make no or a very few head movements while talking.

15) They appear bored in absence of any arousing activities.

16) They mostly speak very smoothly and in neutral tone.

17) They tactically separate their preys from the others.

18) They flirt with the individuals of opposite genders.

19) They express no anxiety for the sad individuals.

20) They do make a very good first impression.

Although both narcissist and psychopath share some common behavioral traits, a psychopath is mostly born but a narcissist and a sociopath is mostly made. While narcissists demand a great amount of attention and special treatment due extremely higher sense of self-worth, psychopaths seek enormous amount of power, control and prestige. They also have the 'Final Solutions' for serious social issues due to over-generalization of people.

Predatory Stare is common among psychopathic killers.

Although psychopaths feel the physical pain themselves, they don't express emotions even while watching a scene which normally causes the distress in all other individuals at varying levels or upsets their stomachs at worst. Laws, morals values, rules, regulations and rights of others are barriers on the path of achieving success, dominance, power and wealth for psychopaths in the first place so they disregard them.

Following are the overall behavioral characteristics, patterns and clues of extremely psychopathic individuals:

1) They are involved in promiscuous sexual relations or have multiple sex partners (outside marital/committed relation).

2) They have the egocentricity or the extremely higher sense of self-worth in comparison to all other individuals.

3) They have very poor or lack of control over their behaviors due to absence of fear about the consequences.

4) They are very glib individuals who have a shallow or superficial charm. They are highly intelligent.

5) They lack the kind of emotional intensity, depth and vividity which most of us experience.

6) They are naturally prone to boredom. Also, they can’t hold frustration for a long time.

7) They are the pathological liars and they possess mastery in deceiving the others.

8) They have a parasitic lifestyle i. e. they do keep on sucking others for living.

9) They are the con-artists, irregular, insincere and unproductive in work lives.

10) They are very irresponsible so they easily get away with wrongdoings.

11) They have a history of theft, bullying or setting fire in early childhood.

12) They have a poor sense about What is wrong and What is right.

13) They take credit for the work that others have done for them.

14) They are very careless about the well-being about of others.

15) Their behavior changes drastically after establishing rapport.

16) They dump individuals after their need(s) is (not) fulfilled.

17) They lack realistic and long-term plans in their own lives.

18) They inflict pain and harm to animals in early childhood.

19) They manipulate others into fulfilling their own desires.

20) They fail to establish strong and long-lasting relations.

21) They are extremely bold and risk-taking individuals.

22) They over-admire somebody in very first meeting.

23) They put blame on others for their own failures.

24) They lack intellectual depth in their thoughts.

25) They like to see other individuals in trouble.

Generally, males are known to be extremely psychopathic by most, due to high levels of testosterone. However, a very few percentage of females or women too are extremely psychopathic. Female psychopaths are mostly involved in love bombing, gaslighting, pretending, playing victim card, developing relationship with victims, deceiving, insulting and abusing their partners, gossiping excessively and excluding or forming alliances against their victims.

All extreme psychopaths always don’t end up behind the bars but they have a greatest potential of devising, planning for and inflicting serious and permanent damages to individuals, families, groups, communities, entire humanity and also its overall future if they are allowed to behave, operate, manipulate and make decisions as they like to with lack of conscience, morality, responsibility, empathy and remorse.

"Every psychopath is a (extreme) narcissist but not every (extreme) narcissist is a psychopath."
Clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula
(World leading expert on Narcissism)

Ted Bundy (Psychopath)
Charming Serial Killer

What sets apart an empathetic and pro-social person from a psychopathic one is the great sense of consequences if another person is hurt or if a rule is broken etc. The psychopaths have poor or lack of connectivity between Amygdala (emotional center for fear and anxiety) and Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) which is responsible for social and emotional/affective decision-making (executive) functions such as inducing empathy and guilt.

Unlike the wild yet easily identifiable predators from a distance, the looks, appearance and impression can be deceptive in human world. There are quite chances that you face a psychopath in your entire life at least once or multiple times. Perhaps, you might end up falling into a trap set by a psychopath.

Psychopathy in children can be detected at an early age, as early as 3rd year of age. So if you are a parent, a custodian and a caretaker then you must pay very close attention to your own children's social behavior, actions and activities around other children. Also, children born to the narcissistic parents can turn into psychopaths.

Almost everybody of us share at least one or multiple behavioral traits out of above 25 behavioral traits/clues of the extreme psychopaths so the next great questions are How one can find if a person you think is a psychopath (psycho)? and How psychopathic the person is exactly?

Is Dexter Morgan a typical serial-killing psychopath? Most of the audience conviniently believe he is the one. However, Dr. Todd Grande has analyzed him or profiled his fictional character thoroughly. Just patiently watch what exactly he has found about him.

If you are really interested, curious or even anxious to know the same then you can use this online tool to find if an individual you think is psychopathic and how much psychopathic he/she is exactly. If the score goes above 30 then it's a truly danger sign and a wakeup call.

By the way, there are some common or shared behavioral and psychological traits among Narcissists, Sociopaths and Psychopaths. Also, sociopaths are often called as 'angry psychopaths'.

[Special Note: World's renowned expert in Psychopathy, Canadian forensic psychologist and professor emeritus of University of British Columbia Dr. Robert D. Hare created the checklist (PCL-R) with 20 different traits put under the same to decide the total psychopathic score.]

Related Articles:
1) Body Language of Extreme Narcissist 2) The Face of Liar(?) 3) Confident Body Language 4) Truth about Lying 5) Are you a 'flying' terrorist? 6) Fear Factor 7) Body Image and Social Communication 8) Body Language of James Bond 9) Amygdala Hijack: Irrational Physical Reactions