


Image Source
Charles Darwin - The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
A man when moderately angry, or even
when enraged, may command the
movements of his body, but ... those
muscles of the face which are least
obedient to the will, will sometimes
alone betray a slight and passing emotion.
David Matsumoto - Study
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Joyful smiles, dismayed frowns and
other facial expressions of emotion
are hardwired into our genes according
to a new study.
Using thousands of photographs
captured at the 2004 Olympic and
Paralympic Games, Matsumoto compared
the facial expressions of sighted and
blind judo athletes, including
individuals who were born blind.
All
competitors displayed the same
expressions in response to winning and
losing.
"The statistical correlation
between the facial expressions of
sighted and blind individuals was
almost perfect," said Matsumoto.
This new evidence shows that facial
expressions of emotion are innate
rather than learned through cultural
observation.
Here is a short video of Matsumoto explaining microexpressions.
HowStuffWorks - Microexpressions
While we provide others with visual
information about the way we feel
through our expressions, other
information "leaks" out of our faces
between or during these intentional
expressions. Microexpressions can be
as brief as about 1/25 of a second.
Microexpressions can be much more
accurate signs of a person's true
feelings and intentions than the
expression he or she is consciously
producing.
Here is a short video of Paul Ekman showing 2 examples.
Stephen Porter - Study
New research out of Stephen Porter’s
Forensic Psychology Lab at Dalhousie
University determines the face will
betray the deceiver’s true emotion.
The results were that no one
participant was able to falsify
emotions perfectly.
Some
emotions were harder to falsify than
others: happiness is easier to fake
than disgust or fear.
The researchers were able to discern
rare “microexpressions,” flashes of
true emotion that show briefly, from
one-fifth to one-25th of a second, on
the faces of participants when
instructed to deceive.
Mark Frank - Lying Is Exposed By Micro-Expressions We Can't Control
... in a project for the National Science
Foundation, Frank developed computer
programs ... making it possible
to identify automatically every facial
expression.
Frank's system has proven successful
in identifying suspects involved in
conventional criminal and potentially
criminal behavior. It is now being
tested for use in identifying
potential terrorists.
"Fleeting facial expressions are
expressed by minute and unconscious
movements of facial muscles like the
frontalis, corregator and risorius,"
Frank says, "and these
micro-movements, when provoked by
underlying emotions, are almost
impossible for us to control."
"I want to make it clear that one
micro-expression or collection of them
is not proof of anything. They have meaning only in the context
of other behavioral cues, and even
then are not an indictment of an
individual, just very good clues."