Microexpression
In their 1966 study, Haggard and Isaacs outlined how they discovered these "micromomentary" expressions while "scanning motion picture films of psychotherapy for hours, searching for indications of non-verbal communication between therapist and patient"[6] Through a series of studies, Paul Ekman found a high agreement across members of diverse Western and Eastern literate cultures on selecting emotional labels that fit facial expressions.
[7] Working with his long-time friend Wallace V. Friesen, Ekman demonstrated that the findings extended to preliterate Fore tribesmen in Papua New Guinea, whose members could not have learned the meaning of expressions from exposure to media depictions of emotion.
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 rhythms at the micro level.
[11] Gottman's 2002 paper makes no claims to accuracy in terms of binary classification, and is instead a regression analysis of a two factor model where skin conductance levels and oral history narratives encodings are the only two statistically significant variables.
[12] In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, Gottman states that there are four major emotional reactions that are destructive to a marriage: defensiveness which is described as a reaction toward a stimulus as if you were being attacked, stonewalling which is the behavior where a person refuses to communicate or cooperate with another,[13] criticism which is the practice of judging the merits and faults of a person, and contempt which is a general attitude that is a mixture of the primary emotions disgust and anger.
[15] A 2024 study investigated the impact of then-President Donald Trump's televised COVID-19 address on viewers' emotions, with a focus on his micro-expressions.
[25] Emotions are defined as a complex pattern of changes, including physiological arousal, feelings, cognitive processes, and behavioral reactions, made in response to a situation perceived to be personally significant.
"Natural liars" may be aware of their ability to control microexpressions, and so may those who know them well; they may have been "getting away" with things since childhood due to greater ease in fooling their parents, teachers, and friends.
These display rules, whether cultural ones shared by most people or personal, individual ones, are usually so well-learned, and learned so early, that the control of the facial expression they dictate is done automatically without thinking or awareness.
[30] Involuntary facial expressions can be hard to pick up and understand explicitly, and it is more of an implicit competence of the unconscious mind.
In the relationship of the prefrontal cortex also known as the (executive mind) which is where cognitive thinking experience and the amygdala being part of the limbic system is responsible for involuntary functions, habits, and emotions.
[32] Lie detection is an important skill not only in social situations and in the workplace, but also for law enforcement and other occupations that deal with frequent acts of deception.
In later years, Ekman found groups of people that are intrigued by this form of detecting deception and had accuracy rates that ranged from 68% to 73%.
Their conclusion was that people with the same training on microexpression and subtle expression recognition will vary depending on their level of emotional intelligence.
These bodily movements occur because of the need to release the chemical buildup of cortisol, which is produced at a higher rate in a situation where there is something at stake.
David Matsumoto is a well-known American psychologist and explains that one must not conclude that someone is lying if a microexpression is detected but that there is more to the story than is being told.
[38] Despite the prevailing belief among law enforcement and the public that micro-expressions are able to reveal whether a person is being deceitful,[39] there is a lack of empirical evidence to support this claim.
[44] This counters the fundamental idea behind microexpressions, which suggests that it is impossible for a liar to conceal their true nature, as evidence of their guilt "leaks" out through these expressions.
[47] Matsumoto discovered that both blind and sighted competitors displayed similar facial expression, during winnings and loss.
[47] Matsumoto also has training tools he has created on his website that teaches people how to identify micro and subtle facial expressions of emotion.
Similarly, one of the main characters in Alastair Reynolds' science fiction novel, Absolution Gap, Aura, can easily read microexpressions.
In the 2015 science fiction thriller Ex Machina, Ava, an artificially intelligent humanoid, surprises the protagonist, Caleb, in their first meeting, when she tells him "Your microexpressions are telegraphing discomfort."
[49] Maria Hartwig, professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argues that it has led to wrongful imprisonment of suspects who were aggressively interrogated due to perceived micro expressions.
Judee K. Burgoon argues in a 2018 Frontiers in Psychology opinion that micro expressions theory presumes that people feel detectible emotions always connected to the same thoughts or motivations.
[52] Burgoon also cites studies showing that micro-expressions are rare:In one of the very few investigations of microexpression frequency, Porter and ten Brinke (2008) coded 700 high-stakes genuine and falsified emotional expressions and found only 2% were microexpressions.and that they seldom result in arrests when implemented at places like airports:testimony to the U.S. Congress revealed that only 0.6% out of 61,000 passenger referrals to law enforcement in 2011 and 2012 resulted in arrests (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2013)
