As the news reports about this year’s terrible flu season start to roll in, many people are beginning to look nervously at anyone who coughs or sniffles. Will there ever be a way to tell if you are getting sick before you start to feel it? Smithsonian Magazine writes that our brains are finely tuned to detect and new research suggests that subtle facial cues alert us to infections only hours after they take hold.John Axelsson, a professor at the University of Stockholm and a co-author of the study, told Smithsonian that he hopes the better understand of non-verbal signs of sickness can help doctors improve diagnoses. But it also means that we might be able to train AI systems to detect illness as well. Mark Frank, a communications professor at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, studies facial expressions. He says that the presence or absence of certain tiny facial movements can indicate disorders like Bell’s Palsy or brain tumors and microexpressions can reveal schizophrenia. Understanding what our faces say about our health will be an important part of training AI, Frank told Smithsonian. It could help with real-time analysis and decision-making.
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