Bush Bids Farewell to Blair

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE NEWS

Bush Bids Farewell to Blair - http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=894182007
As Bush says goodbye to Blair, meeting with him for the last time in their official capacities, The Scotsman writes: 'Even detractors of the president concede he has a high "emotional intelligence" quotient, diffusing awkward questions with humour - a tactic deployed more articulately by Mr Blair.'


Meanwhile, NewScientist.com news service reports of a DEVICE THAT WARNS YOU IF YOU'RE BORING OR IRRITATING.

What took them so long? you ask. I have some people I'd like to send this too!

Assuming that we care, we rely on social cues and emotional intelligence to alert us to when we are doing this to others, and autistic individuals lack the ability to read these cues and that's how this device will help.

Called an "emotional social intelligence prosthetic device," it is being developed at MIT. A small camera will be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses which will then be connected to software that can read the emotions these images show. If they aren't "engaging" the other person, the computer will vibrate.

It can supposedly show whether someone is agreeing, disagreeing, concentrating, thinking, unsure or interested. It tracks such things as "movements of the eyebrows, lips and nose, and tracks head movements such as tilting, nodding and shaking."

So far the machine is reading it right 64% of the time with regular folks, and 90% with actors. The article did not say how they were assessing what the people's emotions were -- an interesting point.

One of the problems the researchers also face is training autistic people to look at the faces of the people to whom they are speaking ... an interesting point as well.

If all this makes you think about nonverbal communication, empathy and emotional intelligence, and you'd like to learn more, take the EQ course - www.susandunn.cc/eqcourse.htm . You will find it fascinating to improve your emotional intelligence.

Timothy Bickmore, of Northeastern University in Boston, evidently a dedicated teacher, is quoted as saying: "I would love it if you could have a computer looking at each student in the room to tell me when 20 per cent of them were bored or confused."