| Paul Ekman's Nesting Dolls | |
|---|---|
| |
|
Origin |
Paul Ekman |
|
Type |
Wooden nesting dolls |
|
Effects |
Opening each dolls makes a duplicate of opener governed by a different emotion |
|
Downsides |
Deteriorating Lie Detection |
|
Activation |
Opening |
|
Collected by |
Warehouse 13 |
|
Section |
|
|
Aisle |
3764-1532 |
|
Shelf |
58154-3565-18 |
|
Date of Collection |
7/5/13 |
| [Source] | |
Origin[]
Paul Ekman is an American psychologist who pioneered the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions, recording more than ten thousand facial expressions. One of Ekman's biggest discoveries was the 'micro-expression', which shows up on our faces for fractions of a second as an indicator of emotion.
It was previously thought that emotions were biologically identical, but in the 1950s, a new theory emerged. It was that the facial expressions and meanings differed between cultures. Through studying the reactions of people from eastern and western cultures, he was able to determine that their facial expressions relatively matched. Ekman also was able to group emotions of facial expressions into six main categories: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
Some of his work has been debated for the testing procedures, such as showing images of singular emotions to volunteers that he screened for being clear enough in one category. Other issues have included a lack of experimental controls to measure data against, lack of peer review in more recent studies and vague testing grounds to distinguish incredible lie detectors from the ordinary.
Effects[]
Opening each doll creates a duplicate of opener. Each clone is governed by one of the six main emotions: Happiness, Excitement, Loneliness, Fright, Anger, and Sadness. Each clone can experience the other five main emotions, but they only happen sparingly and for a short time, like a micro-expression. Re-assembling the dolls in the reverse order of opening reverses the process. Each copy keeps the doll they were created with, and cannot be remerged whole without every doll present.
Dampens one's aptitude to detect lying. Clear behavioral signs someone is hiding a secret or acting strangely go unnoticed, meaning small tics that take an expert negotiator to realize vanish. Starts with small, inconsequential white lies until they can't confirm based on interview alone. Can often lead to false positives instead, where the wielder searches in the wrong fields for lies, where others are perfectly clean. Leads to distrust among one's peers and questioning of their own reputation, seen as paranoid, egotistical or stressed.
Usage[]
During the mid 2000s, retaining Warehouse staff was difficult due to funding issues and hazardous incidents reducing field agents to a minimum. To investigate multiple cases at once, head caretaker Artie used the dolls to duplicate himself. Each version separated and formed their own identity. The fearful copy studied anomalous energy structures at Eureka, while the anger impelled version snagged the TWA Flight 800 Wreckage … and accidentally gave a reason for Leverage International to coalesce.