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| "The face is a dynamic canvas on which people communicate their emotional states," says graduate student Leanne ten Brinke. (Photo illustration by Danny Abriel) |
In making a public appeal for the safe return of his missing wife, Michael White broke down in tears and sobbed.
鈥淢y wife is a good person, never hurts anybody. If she鈥檚 out there and you see me or you see this, just stay out there and we鈥檒l find you,鈥� said the tearful husband, sitting on the sofa in his living room in Edmonton after his pregnant wife Liana White disappeared in July 2005. Canadians watching his plea couldn鈥檛 help but be moved by the plight of the distressed man.
Three days later, flashes of anger broke through his sadness when talking with reporters. He said he was so frustrated with the police investigation that he was going to go and find his wife himself. He led volunteer searchers directly to her body in a ditch on the outskirts of the city, and was immediately arrested by police.
He鈥檇 been lying all along. Michael White was charged and convicted with second-degree murder and committing an indignity to a dead body.
How can we tell who鈥檚 lying, who鈥檚 not? New research out of Stephen Porter鈥檚 Forensic Psychology Lab at AV俱乐部 determines the face will betray the deceiver鈥檚 true emotion, but not in the stereotypical ways we think. It鈥檚 not the shifty eyes or sweaty brow or an elongated nose (脿 la Pinocchio) the lie detector should look for. Instead, other elements of a liar鈥檚 face will give them away 鈥� 鈥渃racking鈥� briefly and allowing displays of true emotion to leak on to the face. In fact, when Porter and his team analyzed White鈥檚 plea frame by frame, they found hints of anger and disgust in his face, not noticed by most of the supportive public.
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Adds Dr. Porter: 鈥淚f someone is telling a really important lie in which the consequences are dire, say life imprisonment, the lie will be revealed anyway. Because unlike body language, you can鈥檛 monitor or completely control what鈥檚 going on your face. This research was the first detailed experimental demonstration of the secrets revealed when people put on a 鈥渇alse face,鈥� faking or inhibiting various universal emotions.鈥�
An article based on their research, 鈥淩eading between the Lies: Identifying Concealed and Falsified Emotions in Universal Facial Expressions,鈥� appears in the May issue of Psychological Science. The research is the first comprehensive study of the secrets revealed by the human face for four of the universal emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, and fear.
They also tested a hypothesis originating with Charles Darwin in 1872鈥攖hat there are certain specific facial actions that cannot be created just because we want them to. As well, facial actions may be involuntarily expressed in the presence of a genuine emotion. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin noted: 鈥淎 man when moderately angry, or even when enraged, may command the movements of his body, but 鈥� those muscles of the face which are least obedient to the will, will sometimes alone betray a slight and passing emotion.鈥�
In conducting the research, Dr. Porter and Ms. ten Brinke enlisted adult participants to view images that ranged from happy (puppies playing) to fearful (a close-up of open-mouthed rabid dog) and disgusting (a severed hand) and were instructed to respond with genuine or deceptive emotional expressions. (For example, they鈥檇 be directed to smile when viewing the severed-hand photo.) Their reactions were watched and judged by other volunteer observers, who could not see the corresponding images, and recorded on video. The 697 emotion clips were exhaustively analyzed frame by frame for more than 100,000 frames.
The results were that no one participant was able to falsify emotions perfectly. Odd or out-of-place expressions鈥攕uch as smirking or rapid blinking in a supposedly sad face鈥攚ere more likely to show up when the participant was attempting to be deceptive. Some emotions were harder to falsify than others: happiness is easier to fake than disgust or fear.
The researchers were able to discern rare 鈥渕icroexpressions,鈥� 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.
鈥淭he facial expression appears to crack and another emotion leaks on the face, however briefly,鈥� says Ms. ten Brinke. 鈥淲hen you see a facial expression like this, you鈥檝e got to probe with questions to find out why the person is feeling this way.鈥� The authors noted that most flashes of inconsistent emotion usually showed in either the upper or lower face only. Further, meaningless muscle twitches sometimes occurred even in genuine expressions, meaning that correct interpretation can only occur by following up with the right questions.
Detecting liars is a tricky business and one that most people鈥攅specially people who are highly motivated to catch liars鈥攁re particularly bad at.
鈥淭here are all kinds of potential applications for this research, from our daily lives to settings like police interrogations, security checks in airports and courtrooms,鈥� says Dr. Porter. 鈥淓veryone鈥檚 trying to figure out who鈥檚 telling the truth, who鈥檚 not 鈥� we鈥檙e just so sick of being lied to.鈥�
The next step in the research is examining the faces of known liars, liars like Michael White, who鈥檝e fabricated stories and made highly publicized appeals. Ms. ten Brinke and Dr. Porter have collected and are analyzing more than 60 videos of such real-life, high-stakes cases from Canada, the United States, Britain and Australia.
鈥淚t鈥檚 to try and give the police a more objective look at whether people in these kinds of situations might be lying,鈥� Ms. ten Brinke explains.
It seems the face does reveal all.