posted
That's a good article. I've seen other stuff on Dr. Ekman, but this article covers the subject well.
Using microexpressions to tell what people are really thinking (especially if they are lying) is slowly percolating through society. My brother mentioned microexpressions yesterday on a phone call--he was talking about how he tried to use them as a supervisor.
I'm not very good at it. I just took a quiz on microexpressions and got around 50-60%, and that was after repeating the expressions multiple times before guessing. http://www.cio.com/article/facial-expressions-test
The quiz is based on "The Micro Expression Training Tool" developed by Dr. Ekman. That goes for $50 at Ekman's website. Maybe I can coax my brother into buying it and I'll borrow it.
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I actually was pretty good at that test. I noticed that I focused mostly on the mouth, then the nose, then the eyes. Funny since the eyes are supposed to be "windows to the soul."
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The mouth and eyes, sure. But the nose? I usually only notice the nose when it does that *crinkle in disgust* thing. Maybe that's why I test poorly--"the nose is the transom to the soul."
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I got 7 of 10 on the first try. One of them I had to literally click on every emotion in turn to get right.
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That is crazy. I don't do well with facial expressions and emotions so I don't have anything really to add. But I liked the bit at the end about why most people probably don't bother to learn the skill. We don't want to know what people are really thinking.
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I got around 5 on the first try and the other 5 on the second. I didn't consciously try to focus on any one part of the face, but when the pictures flashed I focused most on the mouth.
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(I am also uncomfortable making continuous eye contact, always have been. I get freaked out if someone continually focuses on my eyes, and when talking to people look away from their eyes frequently or focus on other parts of their faces.)
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I just spent almost $100 on amazon on books about this. I bought 1 Ekman, 1 by Vrij, and one about the Reid technique. I have a friend who's a cop who recommends the Reid technique. This is going to be fun. For all my brains, I'm totally awful at detecting liars. Let's see if that will change.
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Good links Claudia. I only got 60% on the OkCupid test but somehow managed to pull off 33/36 on the questionwriter.com one!
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steven, if I were you I'd get Ekman's program on CD that I mentioned. It will probably help more than books because it's interactive.
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Ah, I see. This is fascinating. For most of my life I've had a vague idea that people can "smile with their eyes", and when they don't it's a sure way to spot a phony. I didn't know there was research into it from the 19th century.
quote: Perhaps the most famous involuntary expression is what Ekman has dubbed the Duchenne smile, in honor of the nineteenth-century French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, who first attempted to document the workings of the muscles of the face with the camera. If I ask you to smile, you' ll flex your zygomatic major. By contrast, if you smile spontaneously, in the presence of genuine emotion, you' ll not only flex your zygomatic but also tighten the orbicularis oculi, pars orbitalis, which is the muscle that encircles the eye. It is almost impossible to tighten the orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis, on demand, and it is equally difficult to stop it from tightening when we smile at something genuinely pleasurable. This kind of smile "does not obey the will," Duchenne wrote. "Its absence unmasks the false friend."
quote:Originally posted by steven: 60% on OKCupid. It said I scored 99% on "observation". WTF is that? Does anybody else have a result on that?
Yes, I did 99% on observation (whatever that means), and I think it said something about relative to age and gender with that. (?)
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I didn't realize that that test wouldn't keep track of my score, so I'm not sure if I got 6 or 7 right on the first try. I think at least half of those I only watched once.
The second time through, I got all but the sad one right with only watching once. I got that one wrong the first time, too. I think it's the nose that confused me; both times I said disgust.
posted
There's always jerks who claim they can "read bumps on heads" to determine character, micro-expressions is just the latest in a long long long line of such frauds
posted
See, I'm still going to investigate the issue, because I know you don't know shit about it, and you're just guessing and posturing based on your guess.
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quote: This is fascinating. For most of my life I've had a vague idea that people can "smile with their eyes", and when they don't it's a sure way to spot a phony. I didn't know there was research into it from the 19th century.
quote: Perhaps the most famous involuntary expression is what Ekman has dubbed the Duchenne smile, in honor of the nineteenth-century French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, who first attempted to document the workings of the muscles of the face with the camera. If I ask you to smile, you' ll flex your zygomatic major. By contrast, if you smile spontaneously, in the presence of genuine emotion, you' ll not only flex your zygomatic but also tighten the orbicularis oculi, pars orbitalis, which is the muscle that encircles the eye. It is almost impossible to tighten the orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis, on demand, and it is equally difficult to stop it from tightening when we smile at something genuinely pleasurable. This kind of smile "does not obey the will," Duchenne wrote. "Its absence unmasks the false friend."
I can smile with my eyes on command. So people always think my fake smiles are genuine. I don't know that I could do it if I was really mad about something, but I certainly can do it when I'm bored or with someone I don't actually like. I think it's one of the reasons that strangers talk to me more than I'd like in public, because my "polite yes I acknowledge you now go away" smile looks a lot like a "Hi I'm a really nice person wanna be friends" smile.
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quote:Originally posted by ElJay: I can smile with my eyes on command. So people always think my fake smiles are genuine. I don't know that I could do it if I was really mad about something, but I certainly can do it when I'm bored or with someone I don't actually like. I think it's one of the reasons that strangers talk to me more than I'd like in public, because my "polite yes I acknowledge you now go away" smile looks a lot like a "Hi I'm a really nice person wanna be friends" smile.
Another here. I can deliberately suppress the eye part of the smile to give off an "I'm being polite, but now eff off" vibe, though. I do it rarely, but there is nothing like it to set off my sweetheart in a fight. (i.e., I have learned that I can do this (and have done it) in anger as game-playing, and I deliberately do not deliberately give a mouth-only smile at those times anymore -- it's indirect communication that I pretty much cannot be called on, because it's so hard to pinpoint and name. That's unfair.)
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I'm absolutely TERRIBLE at fake-smiling with my eyes. My body seems to know what muscles to use, but it overcompensates and gives me this manic, semi-psychotic look instead.
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Maybe I can coax my brother into buying it and I'll borrow it.
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