Behavior Patterns
As the threat of international terrorism is projected globally, security agencies are giving increased attention to nonverbal communication which plays a growing role in the training of government, military, and law-enforcement personnel. The ability to see signs in irregular or anomalous behaviors and time patterns is seen as essential to ensuring public security. The training focuses on interpretation of "intention" movements, clothing signals, abnormal gaze patterns, emotional voice tones, and deception cues as well as seemingly meaningless grooming habits, facial expressions, and gestures. Motion energy maps show which areas of the face are activated to express given emotions. Integrated in observation tools they enable computers to recognize and respond to emotion cues of the face. A multi spectral digital camera image which displays the facial muscle contractions of specific emotions is analyzed for facial energy patterns used to read emotions, feelings, and moods. Additionally a subject's bioelectric field can be remotely monitored with special equipment to read the brain's frequency patterns of evoked potentials.
New surveillance systems use software that distinguishes between normal activity and suspicious behavior. Software can differentiate between people walking, talking and acting normally, and abnormal behavior such as a fight or someone collapsing, classifying features of human movement such as speed, direction, shape and pattern. Neural network software learns and remembers patterns to create new programs generated from a formula to classify normal or abnormal. Enforcing homogenization of social behavior patterns through comprehensive automatic classification of "normality" is in the interest not only of large scale psychological operations or technologies of political control but also appealing for global mass marketing of consumer products.
Belief Networks
The cognitive effect of processing a piece of information is to allow fixation or revision of beliefs. Bayesian Belief Systems and software for manipulating Belief Networks deal with uncertainty management. Varying degrees of certainty giving a better match to real-world systems than logic requiring certainty. Fuzzy Logic has been applied specifically to deal with concepts that are vague; other approaches to problem solving include evolutionary techniques, Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming or Neural Networks that simulate the effect of neurons and synapses in the brain.
In bottom-up models of Pattern Recognition based on template matching, Prototype and Feature Comparison Theories (distinguishes between detecting and integration), processing starts with part of the pattern and through manipulation yields a more richly specified output. The system works in one direction starting from the sensory input and proceeding to final interpretation, uninfluenced by expectations or previous learning. Other models include Structural Description Theory and top down processes that focus on high-level cognitive processes, existing knowledge and expectations. The pattern of sensory input alone cannot explain the relatively stable and rich experience we have of our surroundings. The immediate perception of a specific interpretation clearly indicates that it is based on more than the sensory input or the information falling on our retina. The highly accurate guesses and inferences that are made rapidly and unconsciously are based on a wealth of knowledge of the world and our expectations for the particular moment. The influences of these sources beyond sensory input are collectively known as top-down influences.
Expert behavior involves highly specific Pattern Recognition employed in sensation and perception. Research on problem solving provides experimental support for a pattern-based knowledge acquisition approach for expert systems and development is increasingly based on patterns rather than linear hierarchies of rules. The pattern-based approach to knowledge acquisition is centered on recognition memory rather than the more error-prone recall memory used to build general rules. A great deal of human expertise seems to result from extensive experience in recognizing and reacting to specific patterns rather than the application of general rules to specific situations.