Semiotics

"As an adult, you may be more sensitive to some emotions than to others. What you learned about reading emotions in your own family might have great applicability to understanding others or relatively little, at least for some emotions. Through watching television, or movies, or a close friend, you may have improved upon and added to your knowledge of facial expressions. Although almost everyone correctly reads some facial expressions, few people realize when they make mistakes or why they make them. The rules for translating a particular set of facial wrinkles into the judgement that a person is angry, afraid, etc. would be very hard for most people to describe. When you follow these rules you do so automatically, on the basis of habits established long so long ago that usually you don’t know how they operate, or even when they operate. In this sense, understanding facial expressions of emotion is like driving a car. You don’t think about what you are doing when you do it. Unlike driving a car, with facial expression there never was an earlier period in which you were specifically taught the skills. There is no manual in which you can check how to correct mistakes. There are no equivalents to the traffic cop telling you when you missed or misinterpreted a signal."

""We know this to be a primary autonomic response, the so called 'shame' or 'blushing' reaction to a morally shocking stimulus. It can't be controlled voluntarily, as can skin conductivity, respiration, and cardiac rate." He showed her the other instrument, a pencil-beam light. "This records fluctuations of tension within the eye muscles. Simultaneous with the blush phenomenon there generally can be found a small but detectable movement of..."

"Two studies investigated gender stereotyping in American magazine photos. Study 1 compares cover photos of men and women on face-ism, an index of the degree to which a photo focuses on the face versus the body. Photos of women are found to focus more on their bodies and photos of men on their faces, a finding consistent with previous research. This finding is strongly mediated by other variables, however, particularly the social role of the cover person. Study 2 compares the facial expressions, specifically the mouth positions, of men and women in advertisements from several popular magazines. Women are significantly more likely than men to be photographed with their mouths open, presumably portraying less serious expressions."

"The young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements."

"Through the principle of associated habit, the same movements of the face and eyes are practised, and can, indeed, hardly be avoided, whenever we know or believe that others are blaming, or too strongly praising, our moral conduct."

"Results from the current study suggest that behavioral avoidance to certain emotional expressions, particularly negative emotional expressions, may increase delays in identifying those same emotional expressions, which may jointly serve to increase risk for adult sexual revictimization. This interaction appears to be more influential than overall accuracy in identifying facial expressions in predicting risk for adult sexual revictimization."

"Previous studies have shown that exposure to traumatic events that put one’s life at risk may affect processing of facial expressions. Thus, for example, individuals suffering from PTSD have difficulties in differentiating between fearful and neutral faces (e.g., Felmingham, Bryant, & Gordon, 2003). Developmental studies have found that neglected or maltreated children demonstrate heightened sensitivity to anger and fearful expressions, while displaying difficulties in perceiving other expressions such as sadness and disgust (Masten et al., 2008; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Pollak & Tolley-Schell, 2003). A recent study, which assessed the long-lasting impact of a terrorist attack, found that children who were held as hostages at the Russian town of Beslan on September 2004 by Chechen rebels were more accurate than nonexposed children in detecting threat related information such as anger in faces, which were morphed from two prototypical emotions (Scrimin, Moscardino, Capello, Altoe, & Axia, 2009; Scrimin, Moscardino, Capello, & Axia, 2008). In military veterans, however, the long-term consequences of life threatening experience on the perception of facial expressions have not been explored before, to the best of our knowledge."

"With your own heart confer; And dread even there to find a flatterer."

"Of folly, vice, disease, men proud we see; And, (stranger still,) of blockheads' flattery; Whose praise defames; as if a fool should mean, By spitting on your face, to make it clean."

"Take no repulse, whatever she doth say; For, "get you gone," she doth not mean, "away." Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces; Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces. That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman."

"O, that men's ears should be To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!"

"They do abuse the king that flatter him: For flattery is the bellows blows up sin."

"But when I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered."

"What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery?"

"By God, I cannot flatter: I do defy The tongues of soothers; but a braver place In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself; Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord."

"Why should the poor be flatter'd? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning."

"Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart, That thought her like her seeming; it had been vicious To have mistrusted her."

"How was Moses able to withstand Pharaoh when he had nothing but holiness to give him courage? ... A solitary prophet once censured a king for his unlawful acts, when the king had his whole army with him. ... These holy men achieved such things because they had resolved to live for the soul alone, turning away from the body and its wants. The fact of needing nothing made them superior to all men. They chose to forsake the body and to free themselves from life in the flesh, rather than to betray the cause of holiness and, because of their bodily needs, to flatter the wealthy. ...But, as for us, when we lack something, instead of struggling courageously against our difficulties, we come fawning to the rich, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we call them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked.We should not flatter, because of our needs, those who value highly the very things it is our vocation to despise."

"I would give worlds, could I believe One-half that is profess'd me; Affection! could I think it Thee, When Flattery has caress'd me."

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery."

"She began to think too, that Sir Mulberry was not quite so agreeable a creature as she had at first supposed him; for, although a skilful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you can keep him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people."

"Men who offer laudatory speeches to the rich ... are insidious because, although mere abundance is by itself quite enough to puff up the souls of its possessors, and to corrupt them, and to turn them aside from the way by which salvation can be reached, these men bring fresh delusion to the minds of the rich by exciting them with the pleasures that come from their immoderate praises, and by rendering them contemptuous of absolutely everything in the world except the wealth which is the cause of their being admired. In the words of the proverb, they carry fire to fire, when they shower pride upon pride, and heap on wealth, heavy by its own nature, the heavier burden of arrogance."

". 'No quality will get a man more friends than a disposition to admire the qualities of others. I do not mean flattery, but a sincere admiration.' . 'Nay, Sir, flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true: but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.'"

"Impaired emotional functioning is a core feature of schizophrenia described by Eugen Bleuler (1911)nearly 100 years ago. Emotional abnormalities in schizophrenia are now receiving more attention by clinicians and investigators and include a variety of symptoms such as flat or constricted affect, inappropriate affect, and depression (Kohler et al., 2000a). In addition to negative symptoms' influence on the experience and expression of emotions, there is evidence that schizophrenia patients are impaired in recognizing and discriminating facial emotions (Morrison et al., 1988; Mandal et al., 1998; Edwards et al., 2001; Kohler et al., 2003). It is unclear whether emotion recognition deficits represent a specific or generalized form of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia (Kerr and Neale, 1993; Whittaker et al., 2001), yet recent studies show that emotion processing deficits are uniquely related to clinical symptoms (Kohler et al., 2000b; Silver et al., 2002; Sachs et al., 2004)."

"Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate abnormalities in early visual encoding of facial features that precedes the ERP response typically associated with facial affect recognition. This suggests that affect recognition deficits, at least for happy and sad discrimination, are secondary to faulty structural encoding of faces. The association of abnormal face encoding with delusions may denote the physiological basis for clinical misidentification syndromes."

"I can read and see the words that you have confined behind the wall of your lips in the expression on your face and in the gaze of your eyes."

"Patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest. You have seen Sunshine and rain at once: her smile and tears Were like a better way."

"Jolie hypothèse elle explique tant de choses."

""But surely you would explain your idea to one who asked you?" I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one. Any key to a work of imagination would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd. The tale is there, not to hide, but to show: if it show nothing at your window, do not open your door to it; leave it out in the cold. To ask me to explain, is to say, "Roses! Boil them, or we won't have them!" My tales may not be roses, but I will not boil them. So long as I think my dog can bark, I will not sit up to bark for him."

"But as our explanation will be more brief than one broken in upon by words of wonder, regret, and affection, we will proceed to it ; holding that explanation, like advice, should be of all convenient shortness."

"... Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature (1992) ... belongs alongside G. H. Hardy’s ' (1940) and James Watson’s ' (1968) as one of the classic books in which a brilliant scientist has given his motivations full vent. But while Hardy and Watson portrayed science as a for personal glory, Weinberg portrayed it as a quest toward some final explanation, one that would undergird all others."

"Dionysus: He who believes needs no explanation. Pentheus: What's the worth in believing worthless things? Dionysus: Much worth, but not worth telling you, it seems."

"A prediction, or any assertion, that cannot be defended might still be true, but an explanation that cannot be defended is not an explanation."

"The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests."

"Sing the melody line you hear in your own head. Remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations."

"Paradoxes explain everything. Since they do, they cannot be explained."

"Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough—as most wrong theories are!"

"Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear."

"Denn wenn sich Jemand versteckt erklärt, so ist Nichts unhöflicher als eine neue Frage."

"Tao mystics never talk about God, reincarnation, heaven, hell. No, they don't talk about these things. These are all creations of human mind: explanations for something which can never be explained, explanations for the mystery. In fact, all explanations are against God because explanation de-mystifies existence. Existence is a mystery, and one should accept it as a mystery and not pretend to have any explanation. No, explanation is not needed – only exclamation, a wondering heart, awakened, surprised, feeling the mystery of life each moment. Then, and only then, you know what truth is. And truth liberates."

"There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't."

"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong."

"Nor do we find him forward to be sounded But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state."

"Confess debt, and beg days. Confessing a fault makes half amends for it."

"It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."

"There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession."

"Proximum ab innocentia tenet locum verecunda peccati confessio."

"Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy."

"I own the soft impeachment."

"Confess thee freely of thy sin; For to deny each article with oath Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception That I do groan withal."