Startup Technology Could Read Your Poker Face

Body language is a powerful form of communication both on off the Hold’em table. It can display our innermost thoughts and feelings through the slightest movements in the blink of an eye. Moreover, our communication in this form is largely out of our control. Unlike the emotionswe actively choose to show, those minor facial twitches are unfiltered and tell truths we may not know we are revealing.

For aficionados like us, we know that maintaining a poker face is crucial to keeping afloat at the high roller table. Players are constantly trying to read each other in order to figure out their odds and play their best. With time and practice, a good player can control most, if not all, of those little twitches and shifts that could blow the big bluff if we aren’t careful. However, we are only human, and a new player is ready to try their luck at reading us.

Introducing Emotient Analytics: the computer algorithm that can read body language. Whether used to determine stress levels of customers who were at a McDonalds, or to measure exactly how much a group of people enjoyed a commercial, Emotient has proven to be extremely successful at reading a language we can hardly perceive with the naked eye. The technology was recently demoed at DEMO Traction, a high end technological growth conference, where it met with quite a lot of praise.

Emotient is able to read and categorize based on 7 emotions and 2 emotional reactions. Those are: joy, sadness, anger, fear, contempt, surprise, disgust, frustration, and confusion. The algorithm compares muscle movements in the face to a set of predetermined facial positions which have been created from extensive testing to match emotional body language. As the algorithm finds similarities between the faces it sees and the emotions it knows, it matches and records how people are feeling at a speed of 30 images per second.

For us, this new technology is a double edged sword. On one hand, the gambling industry is built to cater to our entertainment and pleasure. It is easy to see applications where casinosuse a body language reader to determine who needs comps and service out on the floor. On the other hand, the idea that someone could program a pair of smart glasses to feed information and help them cheatis kind of scary. Particularly as they wouldn’t have perfect card information, but just enough to appear to play very well.

Regardless, we are sure to see more of this technology popping up in different parts of our lives in the future. I would guess we still have a few years to go, though, as it will take time to integrate and understand the best applications of it.