Non-Verbal Analysis of statements by Mark and Adam (MtGox)

[bitsalame]

Although I really like the show "Lie to me" and have read Ekman's books. I must stand firmly behind Horkabork's positions - for they are identical to my own. I'm a biopsychology recent graduate. I've discussed Ekman's techniques with a cognitive neuroscience PhD - and the consensus is - in short. There is not enough evidence to fully support Ekman's theory yet - enough to make it functional. That is, making the predictions actually accurate.

His work in inter-cultural expressions is definitely of interest though.

You should research about the "project diogenes".

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[mouse]

BTW bitsalame,

do you have any other research names I can look up? Im intrigued, but also wary of any research primarily driven by one guy. Always safer to have confirming instances.

For example, this research seems to offer a less optomistic view:

Detecting deception from emotional and unemotional cues.
Authors:
    Warren, Gemma, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom, gcw102@york.ac.uk
    Schertler, Elizabeth, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom
    Bull, Peter, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom
Source:
    Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Vol 33(1), Mar, 2009. pp. 59-69.
Abstract:
    Encoders were video recorded giving either truthful or deceptive descriptions of video footage designed to generate either emotional or unemotional responses. Decoders were asked to indicate the truthfulness of each item, what cues they used in making their judgments, and then to complete both the Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) and Subtle Expression Training Tool (SETT). Although overall performance on the deception detection task was no better than chance, performance for emotional lie detection was significantly above chance, while that for unemotional lie detection was significantly below chance. Emotional lie detection accuracy was also significantly positively correlated with reported use of facial expressions and with performance on the SETT, but not on the METT. The study highlights the importance of taking the type of lie into account when assessing skill in deception detection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Emphasis mine.

Not judging, just curious all things psych.

[bitsalame]

Paul Ekman is very respected in the academic circle. Doubting about his integrity because he was pioneering, it is like doubting of Einstein for being unique in Physics.
Maureen O'Sullivan is the another leading academic in deception research, both Paul Ekman and Maureen O'Sullivan are together in the Diogenes Project where they study people who are naturally gifted in detecting deception at a rate of 80% or more.

This research also revealed that law enforcement aren't particularly successful in detecting lies (actually agents in the Secret Service scored below chance LOL).

[caveden]

Very interesting analysis bitsalame.

It indeed makes more sense, all those bitcoins belonging to MtGox... maybe the hacker even knew that, since he had access to an auditor's computer, and somehow knew where to start looking for coins. Maybe the "auditor" computer had the password to the super-rich account. Actually, maybe the "auditor" wasn't an auditor, but just one of their employees who happened to have access to the whole database and money.

It surprises me anyway, 500.000 coins... that's a lot of revenue for their service... it's indeed a business with a lot of space for more competition!

Just my criticism though: you should be careful before calling such technique a "science". It's as scientific as meteorology or other "sciences" which can't really be trusted... there's no logical way to build knowledge over axioms, and by using an empirical approach, how can you isolate all variables, distinguish interference and all? Anyways, maybe I'm just being too much of a purist here.

[Horkabork]

First of all, you don't know WHAT I analyzed, and don't know who I've been trained with.
You don't know my experience, neither my rate of successful profiling.

Also, I stated very clearly the level of confidence and if it was a unsupported hunch I clearly stated it.
I've been responsible enough of creating a disclaimer before making the analysis where I think I've been clear it is not categorical affirmation of anything, you obviously ignored the whole disclaimer in the beginning of the post.

Allright then. Please tell me your experience, what you analyzed, how you did it, what you've been trained with, and your rate of successful profiling. So far, I understand that you are a psychology major and are not FACS certified. I assume that those are your highest credentials.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the biggest mistake that I noticed that prompted my rant was that you biased yourself by watching this video and performing the analysis with the volume on. I actually hope I'm right here, because I question the sanity of anyone who watched that video twice. That, and also being involved generally in bitcoin and likely Mt. Gox does not make you an impartial analyst.

Yep, I purposely ignored your disclaimer. You should know that disclaimers don't guard you from criticism when you're attempting to make a professional analysis such as this. Pre-med students would be idiotic to go around saying things like, "Well in my opinion, you have haemochromatosis, but this is not to be taken as medical advice." If you're not that confident in your statement, especially given the repercussions, don't make it. There's no backsies when diagnosing people. If you were well-certified professional with credentials that we could all be confident in, then your analysis would be not taken lightly. It could have real monetary, and potentially legal impact on the situation at hand. Magic isn't a plaything, Harry. You are toying with forces that you do not understand! Oh sorry, slipped into another personality there.

Anyway, by deflecting my criticisms by declaring exemption due to a disclaimer, you are essentially indicating that professionalism doesn't matter worth a crap, which doesn't exactly give me confidence in your science.

Thank you, however, for acknowledging and responding kindly to my long and grammatically-questionable post.

[mouse]

Paul Ekman is very respected in the academic circle. Doubting about his integrity because he was pioneering, it is like doubting of Einstein for being unique in Physics.
Maureen O'Sullivan is the another leading academic in deception research, both Paul Ekman and Maureen O'Sullivan are together in the Diogenes Project where they study people who are naturally gifted in detecting deception at a rate of 80% or more.

This research also revealed that law enforcement aren't particularly successful in detecting lies (actually agents in the Secret Service scored below chance LOL).

Haha :-)

I'm not doubting him because he was pioneering, I'm only saying that if it's legit, it WILL be duplicated/confirmed by other researchers, and I always like to see that.

I'm asking if you know if thats been done.

[bitsalame]

First of all, you don't know WHAT I analyzed, and don't know who I've been trained with.
You don't know my experience, neither my rate of successful profiling.

Also, I stated very clearly the level of confidence and if it was a unsupported hunch I clearly stated it.
I've been responsible enough of creating a disclaimer before making the analysis where I think I've been clear it is not categorical affirmation of anything, you obviously ignored the whole disclaimer in the beginning of the post.

Allright then. Please tell me your experience, what you analyzed, how you did it, what you've been trained with, and your rate of successful profiling. So far, I understand that you are a psychology major and are not FACS certified. I assume that those are your highest credentials.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the biggest mistake that I noticed that prompted my rant was that you biased yourself by watching this video and performing the analysis with the volume on. I actually hope I'm right here, because I question the sanity of anyone who watched that video twice. That, and also being involved generally in bitcoin and likely Mt. Gox does not make you an impartial analyst.

Yep, I purposely ignored your disclaimer. You should know that disclaimers don't guard you from criticism when you're attempting to make a professional analysis such as this. Pre-med students would be idiotic to go around saying things like, "Well in my opinion, you have haemochromatosis, but this is not to be taken as medical advice." If you're not that confident in your statement, especially given the repercussions, don't make it. There's no backsies when diagnosing people. If you were well-certified professional with credentials that we could all be confident in, then your analysis would be not taken lightly. It could have real monetary, and potentially legal impact on the situation at hand. Magic isn't a plaything, Harry. You are toying with forces that you do not understand! Oh sorry, slipped into another personality there.

Anyway, by deflecting my criticisms by declaring exemption due to a disclaimer, you are essentially indicating that professionalism doesn't matter worth a crap, which doesn't exactly give me confidence in your science.

Thank you, however, for acknowledging and responding kindly to my long and grammatically-questionable post.

I have no time to explain to you anything, I am not interested in writing a paper in a bitcoin forum.
Either you take it, or you leave it, that's my deal.
By the way, I see you also suffered from selection bias since I already explained it in the post about the nature of my skills, but I am rational enough to realize that I can't use it to attack you back with it because that would be fallacious.

Have a good day

For the record 2: As I said, you prejudged me without knowing anything.
The volume was off the first time I watched it. There were very inconsistent gestures that were very awkward so I had to turn on the sound.
1) The lags in the teleconference were causing weird situations.
2) After turning on the sound I realized that the constant gazes were because Mark wasn't fluent in English and he had difficulty understanding the English pronunciation of the interviewer.
Without contemplating this, I would have reached to wrong conclusions.
Secondly, to properly assess the truthfulness, it is important to contrast the verbal expression with the non-verbal verbal expression and the context. It is way more complicated than you think.

[bitsalame]

Paul Ekman is very respected in the academic circle. Doubting about his integrity because he was pioneering, it is like doubting of Einstein for being unique in Physics.
Maureen O'Sullivan is the another leading academic in deception research, both Paul Ekman and Maureen O'Sullivan are together in the Diogenes Project where they study people who are naturally gifted in detecting deception at a rate of 80% or more.

This research also revealed that law enforcement aren't particularly successful in detecting lies (actually agents in the Secret Service scored below chance LOL).

Haha :-)

I'm not doubting him because he was pioneering, I'm only saying that if it's legit, it WILL be duplicated/confirmed by other researchers, and I always like to see that.

I'm asking if you know if thats been done.

Sure, research the professor I mentioned before: PhD. Maureen O'Sullivan, Professor Emeritus of the University of San Francisco.
There are countless amount of professionals researching deception. If you are really interested, tell me in what state you are and I might be able to find someone researching in your area.

[mouse]

Paul Ekman is very respected in the academic circle. Doubting about his integrity because he was pioneering, it is like doubting of Einstein for being unique in Physics.
Maureen O'Sullivan is the another leading academic in deception research, both Paul Ekman and Maureen O'Sullivan are together in the Diogenes Project where they study people who are naturally gifted in detecting deception at a rate of 80% or more.

This research also revealed that law enforcement aren't particularly successful in detecting lies (actually agents in the Secret Service scored below chance LOL).

Haha :-)

I'm not doubting him because he was pioneering, I'm only saying that if it's legit, it WILL be duplicated/confirmed by other researchers, and I always like to see that.

I'm asking if you know if thats been done.

Sure, research the professor I mentioned before: PhD. Maureen O'Sullivan, Professor Emeritus of the University of San Francisco.
There are countless amount of professionals researching deception. If you are really interested, tell me in what state you are and I might be able to find someone researching in your area.

Interesting. I'm reading a few of her articles now, judt out of curiosity.

Looks like they were critisized by Bond and Uysal, to which they reubbed. I can pick up the trail from here.

Cheers,

btw, I tend to agree it was probably mt. gox money, and i think thats the most interesting thing to note so far, but to back this up I only offer heresay and conjecture :-)

[bitsalame]

I agree 100%, but i'm not a Phych major. I just read people real well, from my experience.

This I agree with 100% especially. I noticed it too, and watched carefully for the reaction.
15:31
-Truth: One Account compromised
+Hacked Account belonged to Mt.Gox? Very Probably.
Detected disconformity microexpression in Adam. Also significant macroexpressions in Adam, who presses his lips for the first time; it might be interpreted as "I can't talk about it" and/or imply frustration/repressing emotions.
With what we have so far, I am inclined to believe (and this a long shot) that it was Adam's account or it was under Adam's responsability.
This idea is supported when Mark starts his answer by laughing and looking at Adam out of the corner of his eye. Adam suddenly gets his eyes teary, glances away and bursts several microexpressions, repeating once more time a disconformity microexpression.
Probably Mark bitched a lot about it.

They would have stated the account was not compromised, were it NOT compromised. It was most likely Mt Gox's account.

Also they are very cute, I can tell they hate lying, so they take another recourse; they simply avoid answering the question: non-answers and deflections.
If you watch it a few times you will also see the pattern

(btw, their deflections suck lol)

[NO_SLAVE]

Oh good a psychology undergrad has published their "professional" opinion based on sophomore text books, a couple 200 level classes and TV shows.
 And the "Veredict" was a real wowsa event.  Those lying cheaters, Get the rope.....

[Horkabork]

Oh good a psychology undergrad has published their "professional" opinion based on sophomore text books, a couple 200 level classes and TV shows.
 And the "Veredict" was a real wowsa event.  Those lying cheaters, Get the rope.....

That reminds me of this Onion article
http://www.theonion.com/articles/freshman-psych-student-diagnoses-roommate-with-bip,379/

[bitsalame]

Oh good a psychology undergrad has published their "professional" opinion based on sophomore text books, a couple 200 level classes and TV shows.
 And the "Veredict" was a real wowsa event.  Those lying cheaters, Get the rope.....

Why do you guys believe that there can exist computer whizzes, but not psychology whizzes?
That is something that always escaped my understanding.
I am a psychology nerd who's been particularly gifted (or cursed).

Also, I know it might sound as bragging but it is the true: I don't need to study the textbooks in college because I studied them all before hand when I was younger. I don't need to study them, I just "get it", I "feel it" and I know it by heart. I always go beyond the scope of the class because undegraduate college is simply too basic for me. Sometimes I know more than the graduate students who are teaching us in class. I am an undergraduate, but I already have my proposed doctoral thesis being reviewed by my professors. They also thought I was being pretentious, now they acknowledge it is quite creative and original. The provost told me that if my ambition is successful, I would deserve a Nobel prize.

When you guys were reading your first pages of computer magazines and programming your first lines of Basic, I was doing a sociological analysis of my class for the lulz (even before I knew the term "sociology"), reading psychology papers and in elementary school I was stealing and reading the parenting books my parents used to buy to try to understand me!
As time passed I even developed my own version of cognitive psychology and sociology by intuition alone, and the first day I grabbed a textbook that talked about it, I was like "damn, so everything I used to do actually had a name!".
I always had a keen sense of observation and my deductive skills got even more refined when I first learned about "Fermi Problems" when I was around 13 years old, which allowed me to do quick accurate approximations of everything in non-obvious ways: it introduced me to the world of lateral thinking.

Maybe it is my nature, or maybe it is caused from all this nurture I got through self-education, but I can immediately empathize with any human being, no matter how rebellious, troll, elder, open minded or squared, and it is thought to be one of the main characteristics to actually "feel" deceptions accurately (emotion based deceptions, that is)
The discovery of Ekman and O'Sullivan allowed me to calibrate even better my perception, and I assure you that I knew about Ekman a decade ago before the series Lie To Me came to Fox. For me, it was really surprising to see his life on screen.
I have even communicated with Prof. O'Sullivan before she passed away last year, and she connected me with one of her closest students who was in charge of the Diogenes Project.

So, well, there you have it.
What happened to you in world of computers, it happened to me in the intricate world of the human mind.

The best news is, I am not alone. There are thousands of gifted and talented people in the world. You might be one, whoever you are.
If you were diagnosed or suspected having ADD or ADHD, you might be misdiagnosed.
Giftedness has very very similar symptoms to ADD, but with only one key difference: if you are a gifted you CAN concentrate on whatever subject that interests you. It doesn't have to be a subject in school, it could be about sports or motorcycles, anything.
You might have difficulty focusing in class or in anything that you don't care, but if it interests you you ace it.
On the other hand, people with ADD/ADHD CAN NOT CONCENTRATE ON ANYTHING.
Also, gifted kids usually get along with people much older than them, and usually don't get along with the kids of their same age.
Giftedness doesn't mean being a genius, it means to be intellectually more mature, deep and/or curious than the kids of your age.
Most of the times it causes emotional stress to the kids because emotionally they are still immature, when intellectually they are way ahead of their age (it's called asynchronous development).

And let me clarify: I am not talking about Indigo kids, that is newage bullshit. I am talking about the psychological definition of giftedness.
If you feel identified (I bet that the great majority here does), you might be gifted. The problem: not many psychologists are really trained to identify them, that's why Ritalin is being horribly overmedicated and horribly misdiagnosed.

Well, I better stop my rant here.
I want to start reading the new book I got from Amazon: "Security Analysis" by Graham and Dodd.
Why?, why not? For the lulz.

Sayonara!

[MtGox_Adam]

FYI - I nod at everything. It's a habit I've picked up here in Japan from teaching english. Nodding at students as they literally piece sentences together shows I understand, and encourages students that would otherwise be shy/nervous when trying to express their thought or opinions. In the last 8 months I've been here I haven't met many english speakers, so 95% of the time I speak english it is with non-native speakers. I've found this mannerism has carried over. I also tend to over express everything with my face (I'm very aware of this) so I don't know how it would reflect in this kind of assessment. (I think it may distort, rather than amplify, judging from what you were able to puzzle together). By prescreening our reactions with information that may or may not be true, your assessment is at the mercy of your own confirmation bias. Its definitely was amusing to read however.

[Mark Oates]

While your analysis is interesting, I think that you know better than to attempt to practice a method of lie detection that is both very inaccurate and very misleading if used by someone who does not have a great deal of experience. I'm not saying that the science is inaccurate, but that you should know that YOU don't know enough about this to practice it on strangers for the benefit of the public. You're hurting your reputation as a science major. You're also presenting your "findings" of truth or deception as truth or deception, when, in fact, each gesture, expression, or apparent emotion can point to a multitude of other conditions. If you're going to do this, please at least list them with probabilities along with the dominant/combined findings.

By findings, I don't mean interpretation of gestures, expression, microexpressions, or apparent emotions but only the states that they could point to. You should know better than to attempt to interpret the communicated message behind a perceived behavior. Dr. Ekman found that expressions might be consistent across cultures in the states that they point to, but the communicated nonverbal message is a crapshoot. Expression analysis, for example, is troublesome when used by trained soldiers interviewing potential terrorists (they have to phrase questions very specifically). I mention this because your subject is a French(?) guy speaking English that he obviously can't fully understand, living in Japan, and unable to hear his mumbling, badly-miked interviewer half the time, let alone understand him.

If you really want to do this, run everything you did by a psychology professor and have him post. If you can't get anyone to do this, well, there's a sign. Part of good science is realizing that you have inadequate skills to interpret results properly. Especially if you're essentially diagnosing humans. Especially when crime is involved. Especially if you have a reputation to earn or keep. Especially if you don't have credentials or someone with credentials to provide evidence as to your skill level. Especially when you are making judgements that affect someone's reputation. Especially when you're trying to do something that only a fraction of clinical psychology grad students would attempt to do in a public forum for the sake of, well, entertainment. Dude, this is the psychology equivalent of a pre-med major doing knee surgery. Yeah, he might get the fundamentals taken care of, but it's not good for anyone involved.

And you should note that this criticism has little to do with the science. I likely don't know the science as well as you, but I do know that you don't know it half as well as you think you do, or else you wouldn't be doing it here. Even a well-trained psychology professional with years of experience in lie detection would be very reluctant to write what you wrote about an internet video. Well, at least without lots of prior footage of the subjects and/or the ability to ask the questions themselves.

You admit that you aren't trained, but your idol Dr. Ekman says that something like 0.2% of people have the ability to semi-accurately perceive microexpressions without training. I would wager that an even much smaller fraction can, untrained, translate those perceived microexpressions into a reasonably certain analysis.

Your decision to providing this analysis alone, regardless of the content or quality of the analysis, basically screams "I have poor judgement". Since apparently having a handful of undergraduate psychology classes is enough to allow you to nearly write libel, that's my psychological analysis.

Please for the love of god don't take what I'm saying here as tearing you up for the sake of being a jerk. I would absolutely love it if you could do an analysis like that but could back it up. I also greatly encourage you to continue your studies, but to be very self-critical and skeptical, because yours is a field that has humans as the lab rats, so mistakes are often costly.

AAAAaaaaahhhhhh..... that felt good to read.   

[Bit_Happy]

 ...Some people have been suggesting that the hack was so bad that the 500k BTC perhaps never existed.  

That would be the worst-case disaster. Hacker with complete access to the live database creates 500,000 phony BTC >> Crashes Market >> Buys back into several accounts >> Uses automated scripts to quickly withdraw as many as possible from multiple accounts.
^^^
I hope that didn't happen, can we all please see our accounts soon?

[psyborgue]

After the training I detect 100% consistently.

Or you've convinced yourself (and others) that you do.  Seems to me it's a pseudoscience-du-jour that can't bear any real scrutiny.  A TV driven fad backed by a quack.  A psychological con so people can feel like they have some superpower.  Who else wouldn't want to be 100% right on everything.  Word to the wise: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and you're probably fooling yourself.  Eckman's stuff isn't even peer reviewed.  He's a Guru, not a scientist.

[NO_SLAVE]

FYI - I nod at everything. It's a habit I've picked up here in Japan from teaching english. Nodding at students as they literally piece sentences together shows I understand, and encourages students that would otherwise be shy/nervous when trying to express their thought or opinions. In the last 8 months I've been here I haven't met many english speakers, so 95% of the time I speak english it is with non-native speakers. I've found this mannerism has carried over. I also tend to over express everything with my face (I'm very aware of this) so I don't know how it would reflect in this kind of assessment. (I think it may distort, rather than amplify, judging from what you were able to puzzle together). By prescreening our reactions with information that may or may not be true, your assessment is at the mercy of your own confirmation bias. Its definitely was amusing to read however.

whoa, maybe I'm crazy, but........SHOULDNT YOU BE BUSY GETTING MTGOX BACK ONLINE!???

[bitsalame]

After the training I detect 100% consistently.

Or you've convinced yourself (and others) that you do.  Seems to me it's a pseudoscience-du-jour that can't bear any real scrutiny.  A TV driven fad backed by a quack.  A psychological con so people can feel like they have some superpower.  Who else wouldn't want to be 100% right on everything.  Word to the wise: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and you're probably fooling yourself.  Eckman's stuff isn't even peer reviewed.  He's a Guru, not a scientist.

The METT is a standard test, I don't throw numbers because I like them.
It seems that you really need to check your biases.
I am tired of uninformed and uneducated Wikipedia-based critics-du-jour.

Edit: Not even peer reviewed? Quackery? Seriously, STFU.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt"

[NO_SLAVE]

After the training I detect 100% consistently.

Or you've convinced yourself (and others) that you do.  Seems to me it's a pseudoscience-du-jour that can't bear any real scrutiny.  A TV driven fad backed by a quack.  A psychological con so people can feel like they have some superpower.  Who else wouldn't want to be 100% right on everything.  Word to the wise: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and you're probably fooling yourself.  Eckman's stuff isn't even peer reviewed.  He's a Guru, not a scientist.

The METT is a standard test, I don't throw numbers because I like them.
It seems that you really need to check your biases.
I am tired of uninformed and uneducated Wikipedia-based critics-du-jour.

Edit: Not even peer reviewed? Quackery? Seriously, STFU.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt"

whoa, youre a mess (most shrink majors are, thats why they are there), but could you take this down the hall to your "colleagues" or your Nobel prize committee chair,
cause nobody cares.  Thanks