Sweating the Small Stuff
micro-expression is a brief, involuntary facial expression shown on the face of humans when one is trying to conceal or repress an emotion. They usually occur in high-stakes situations, where people have something to lose or gain.
Unlike regular facial expressions, few can fake a microexpression (it is possible to voluntarily stress some facial muscles to replicate micro-expressions). But, no one can fake above a certain extent, when questions are asked accordingly, and only trained professionals could ask the right questions at the right time, to get the true color out. They consist of and completely resemble the seven universal emotions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt. Microexpressions can occur as fast as 1/25 of a second.
History
Microexpressions were first discovered by Haggard and Isaacs. In their 1966 study, Haggard and Isaacs outlined how they discovered these “micromomentary” expressions while “scanning motion picture films of psychotherapy hours, searching for indications of non-verbal communication between therapist and patient”
In the 1960s, William Condon pioneered the study of interactions at the fraction-of-a-second level. In his famous research project, he scrutinized a four-and-a-half-second film segment frame by frame, where each frame represented 1/25th second. After studying this film segment for a year and a half, he discerned interactional micromovements, such as the wife moving her shoulder exactly as the husband’s hands came up, which combined yielded microrhythms.
Malcolm Gladwell 
John Gottam
Years after Condon’s study, American psychologist John Gottman began video-recording living relationships to study how couples interact. By studying participant’s facial expressions, Gottman was able to predict which relationships would last and which would not. In Malcom Gladwell‘s book Blink, Gottman states that there are four major emotional reactions that are destructive to a marriage: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Among these four, Gottman considers contempt the most important of them all.
Naturals – Wizards Project
Paul Ekman
The Wizards Project (formerly called the Diogenes Project) was a research project conducted by Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan that studied the ability of people to detect lies told by others. The project was originally named after the Greek philosopher who would look into people’s faces using a lamp, claiming to be looking for an honest man.
A “Truth Wizard” is a person identified in the Wizards Project, who can identify deception with exceptional accuracy of at least 80% or higher, whereas the average person is only as good as a coin toss. No Truth Wizard, however, is 100% accurate. The term “wizard” refers to “a person of amazing skill or accomplishment” .
Scientists Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan and Dr. Paul Ekman, who lead the Wizards Project identified only 50 people as Truth Wizards after testing 20,000 people (about 0.25% of the population) from all walks of life, including the Secret Service, FBI, sheriffs, police, attorneys, arbitrators, psychologist, students and every day people. Surprisingly, while psychiatrists and law enforcement showed no more aptitude than college freshmen, Secret Service agents were the most skilled; however, no collective group scored as well as the Truth Wizards.
Dr. Paul Ekman said on NPR that “we have found 50 who have this really nearly perfect ability to spot liars, and that’s without any specialized training.”
Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan from the University of San Francisco says, “Our wizards are extraordinarily attuned to detecting the nuances of facial expressions, body language and ways of talking and thinking. Some of them can observe a videotape for a few seconds and amazingly they can describe eight details about the person on the tape.”
Scientists are currently studying Truth Wizards to identify new ways to spot a liar.
Truth Wizards use a variety of clues to spot deception and do not depend on any one “clue” to identify a liar. Truth wizards have a natural knack for spotting microexpressions. They also home in on inconsistencies in emotion, body language, and words spoken with amazing skill.
Dr. Paul Ekman said on NPR, “We’re still trying to find out how in the world did they learn this skill? Are they the sort of Mozarts of lie detection; they just had it?”
References
- ^ P.Granhag and L. Strömwall, “The detection of deception in forensic contexts”, Cambridge University Press, p. 269, 2004
- ^ P.Granhag and L. Strömwall, “The detection of deception in forensic contexts”, Cambridge University Press, p. 269, 2004
- ^ Camilleri, J., Truth Wizard knows when you’ve been lying”, Chicago Sun-Times, January 21, 2009
- ^ Camilleri, J., Truth Wizard knows when you’ve been lying”, Chicago Sun-Times, January 21, 2009
- ^ P. Ekman, “Facial Expressions of Emotion: an Old Controversy and New Findings”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, B335:63–69, 1992
- ^ Haggard, E. A., & Isaacs, K. S. (1966). Micro-momentary facial expressions as indicators of ego mechanisms in psychotherapy. In L. A. Gottschalk & A. H. Auerbach (Eds.), Methods of Research in Psychotherapy (pp. 154-165). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
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