How do you feel today?

How good are you at reading faces? Do you know when your boss is frustrated? Can you tell the difference between a heartfelt smile and a sorority smile? Could you beat Will Riker at poker? If you are any good at reading the emotions of others, you are better than me.
A while back I read a newspaper article on emotions. The article included a test. There were eight pictures showing faces in various emotional states. The average person can match up all of the faces with the corresponding emotional label. I got three right.
Empathy requires a bit of mind reading. Human beings do not emit emotional radiation. We do, however, express ourselves through motion and sound. When you see this guy, you know he has a headache. There is a conscious component to recognizing his pain. You can understand the scrunched up forehead and grimace he gives as reserved for such moments. There is also a non-conscious mechanism made up of mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons fire not only when you perform an action but also when other people do the same action. Mirror neurons provide a biological mechanism for empathy. When you see a child pouting your brain may actually register the information through the same neurons that would fire if you were pouting yourself. Yes boys, there is finally a scientific explanation to why a baseball to your pal’s groin makes you double over in pain.
Mirror neurons may help us understand differences in temperaments. The Thinkers in Myers-Briggs terminology may have less active mirror neurons.
In closing, a haiku.

cresting waves and foam
tell nothing to the sailor
about the great deep