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"I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke

Emotion Meter  
  A device for empirically determining human emotion.  

You have probably all heard of the lie-detector which is now in use in some police departments in connection with crime. I have greatly improved upon it. My invention takes into consideration many more physical changes in the human body. It measures heartbeat, breathing, body temperature and increase or decrease of gland secretion. All of these are affected by emotion...

Professor Miller helped Sayles adjust the apparatus. One plate clamped on his wrist, one over his heart and then a small object was placed under his tongue. The professor explained that the latter measured both the slight change in temperature and the glandular action, making use of the salivary glands as they were the easiest to reach and also reacted the best to emotion.

Technovelgy from The Emotion Meter, by W. Varick Nevins, III.
Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1935
Additional resources -

Compare to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data has an emotion chip. Also, see Emotional Register from The Primal Urge (1961) by Brian Aldiss.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Emotion Meter
  More Ideas and Technology by W. Varick Nevins, III
  Tech news articles related to The Emotion Meter
  Tech news articles related to works by W. Varick Nevins, III

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