Mind Reading the Interactive Guide to Emotion

A remarkable new DVD has been published that is an electronic encyclopaedia of emotions entitled ‘Mind Reading; the interactive guide to emotions. Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues at the University of Cambridge discovered that there are 412 human emotions (excluding synonyms).
They examine the age at which children understand the meaning of each emotion and developed taxonomy that assign all the distinct emotions into one of 24 different groups. A multimedia company then developed software that is suitable for children and adults to learn about emotions based on the work of the Cambridge team. On the DVD six actors portray each of the 412 emotions using video recordings of facial expression, body language and speech. The DVD also includes video recordings and stories that illustrate the circumstances and contexts for each emotion. There is an “emotions library”, a learning centre and a games zone. A controlled treatment trial is currently being conducted to determine the effectiveness of the program in teaching and understanding of emotions and any improvements in theory of mind abilities.

I strongly recommend the program as particularly suitable for children and adults with Asperger’s Syndrome. Such individuals can have considerable difficulty learning cognitive skills in the “life” social theatre of the classroom where they have to divide their attention between the activities in front of them and the social/emotional and linguistic communication of the teacher and the other children. With a computer the feedback is instantaneous; they do not have to wait for a response from the teacher and they can repeat a scene to identify and analyse the relevant cues many times without annoying or boring others. They are also not going to receive public criticism for mistakes, and are more likely to relax when engaged in a solitary activity. The program is designed to minimise any irrelevant detail, highlight the relevant cues and to enable the student to progress at their own pace. It may well be somewhat ironic, but those with Asperger’s Syndrome have been better able to learn about people by using a computer then absorbing real life situations.

For further information go to www.jkp.com/mindreading