Microexpression
A microexpression is a facial expression that only lasts for a short moment. It is the innate result of a voluntary and an involuntary emotional response occurring simultaneously and conflicting with one another, and occurs when the amygdala responds appropriately to the stimuli that the individual experiences and the individual wishes to conceal this specific emotion. This results in the individual very briefly displaying their true emotions followed by a false emotional reaction.
Human emotions are an unconscious biopsychosocial reaction that derives from the amygdala and they typically last 0.5–4.0 seconds, although a microexpression will typically last less than 1/2 of a second. Unlike regular facial expressions it is either very difficult or virtually impossible to hide microexpression reactions. Microexpressions cannot be controlled as they happen in a fraction of a second, but it is possible to capture someone's expressions with a high speed camera and replay them at much slower speeds. Microexpressions express the seven universal emotions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, contempt, and surprise. Nevertheless, in the 1990s, Paul Ekman expanded his list of emotions, including a range of positive and negative emotions not all of which are encoded in facial muscles. These emotions are amusement, embarrassment, anxiety, guilt, pride, relief, contentment, pleasure, and shame.
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 for hours, searching for indications of non-verbal communication between therapist and patient" 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. Expressions he found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Findings on contempt are less clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally recognized. 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. Ekman and Friesen then demonstrated that certain emotions were exhibited with very specific display rules, culture-specific prescriptions about who can show which emotions to whom and when. These display rules could explain how cultural differences may conceal the universal effect of expression.In the 1960s, William S. 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 rhythms at the micro level.
Years after Condon's study, American psychologist John Gottman began video-recording living relationships to study how couples interact. By studying participants' facial expressions, Gottman was able to correlate expressions with which relationships would last and which would not. 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. Facial expressions using Ekman's encoding scheme were not statistically significant. 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, 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. Among these four, Gottman considers contempt the most important of them all.
Types
Microexpressions are typically classified based on how an expression is modified. They exist in three groups:- Simulated expressions: when a microexpression is not accompanied by a genuine emotion. This is the most commonly studied form of microexpression because of its nature. It occurs when there is a brief flash of an expression, and then returns to a neutral state.
- Neutralized expressions: when a genuine expression is suppressed and the face remains neutral. This type of micro-expression is not observable due to the successful suppression of it by a person.
- Masked expressions: when a genuine expression is completely masked by a falsified expression. Masked expressions are microexpressions that are intended to be hidden, either subconsciously or consciously.
In photographs and films
Moods vs emotions
Moods differ from emotions in that the feelings involved last over a longer period. For example, a feeling of anger lasting for just a few minutes, or even for an hour, is called an emotion. But if the person remains angry all day, or becomes angry a dozen times during that day, or is angry for days, then it is a mood. Many people describe this as a person being irritable, or that the person is in an angry mood. As Paul Ekman described, it is possible but unlikely for a person in this mood to show a complete anger facial expression. More often just a trace of that angry facial expression may be held over a considerable period: a tightened jaw or tensed lower eyelid, or lip pressed against lip, or brows drawn down and together.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.
Controlled microexpressions
Facial expressions are not just uncontrolled instances. Some may in fact be voluntary and others involuntary, and thus some may be truthful and others false or misleading. Facial expression may be controlled or uncontrolled. Some people are born able to control their expressions, while others are trained, for example actors. "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. People can simulate emotion expressions, attempting to create the impression that they feel an emotion when they are not experiencing it at all. A person may show an expression that looks like fear when in fact they feel nothing, or perhaps some other emotion. Facial expressions of emotion are controlled for various reasons, whether cultural or by social conventions. For example, in the United States many little boys learn the cultural display rule, "little men do not cry or look afraid." There are also more personal display rules, not learned by most people within a culture, but the product of the idiosyncrasies of a particular family. A child may be taught never to look angrily at his father, or never to show sadness when disappointed. 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.Emotional intelligence
Involuntary facial expressions can be hard to pick up and understand explicitly, and it is more of an implicit competence of the unconscious mind. Daniel Goleman created a conclusion on the capacity of an individual to recognize their own, as well as others' emotions, and to discriminate emotions based on introspection of those feelings. This is part of Goleman's emotional intelligence. In E.I, attunement is an unconscious synchrony that guides empathy. Attunement relies heavily on nonverbal communication. Looping is where facial expressions can elicit involuntary behavior, In the research motor mimicry there shows neurons that pick up on facial expressions and communicate with motor neurons responsible for muscles in the face to display the same facial expression. Thus displaying a smile may elicit a micro expression of a smile on someone who is trying to remain neutral in their expression.is the emotion center of the brain
Through fMRI we can see the area where these Mirror neurons are located lights up when you show the subject an image of a face expressing an emotion using a mirror. In the relationship of the prefrontal cortex also known as the which is where cognitive thinking experience and the amygdala being part of the limbic system is responsible for involuntary functions, habits, and emotions. The amygdala can hijack the pre-frontal cortex in a sympathetic response. In his book Emotional Intelligence Goleman uses the case of Jason Haffizulla as an example of an emotional hijacking this is where rationality and better judgement can be impaired. This is one example of how the bottom brain can interpret sensory memory and execute involuntary behavior. This is the purpose of microexpressions in attunement and how you can interpret the emotion that is shown in a fraction of a second. The microexpression of a concealed emotion that's displayed to an individual will elicit the same emotion in them to a degree, this process is referred to as an emotional contagion. Being able to introspect these emotions can have applications to having more accurate judgements on an individuals intentions although accuracy depends a lot of factors. Accuracy can be determined by an web based microemotional aptitude test called the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity which is similar to the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test which tests the ability to read emotions.
MFETT and SFETT
Micro Facial expression training tools and subtle Facial expression training tools are software made to develop someone's skills in the competence of recognizing emotion. The software consists of a set of videos that you watch after being educated on the facial expressions. After watching a short clip, there is a test of your analysis of the video with immediate feedback. This tool is to be used daily to produce improvements. Individuals that are exposed to the test for the first time usually do poor trying to assume what expression was presented, but the idea is through the reinforcement of the feedback you unconsciously generate the correct expectations of that expression. These tools are used to develop rounder social skills and a better capacity for empathy. They are also quite useful for development of social skills in people on the autism spectrum. Although lie detection is not only an important skill in social situations and the workplace, but is a vital aspect to law enforcement and other occupations that deal with continual acts of deception. Microexpression and subtle expression recognition are valuable assets for these occupations as it increases the chance of detecting deception. In recent years it was found that the average person has a 54% accuracy rate in terms of exposing whether a person is lying or being truthful. However, Ekman had done a research experiment and discovered that secret service agents have a 64% accuracy rate. 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.Lies and leakage
The sympathetic nervous system is one of two divisions under the autonomic nervous system, it functions involuntarily and one aspect of the system deals with emotional arousal in response to situations accordingly. Therefore, if an individual decides to deceive someone, they will experience a stress response within because of the possible consequences if caught. A person using deception will typically cope by using nonverbal cues which take the form of bodily movements. 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. The purpose for these involuntary nonverbal cues are to ease oneself in a stressful situation. In the midst of deceiving an individual, leakage can occur which is when nonverbal cues are exhibited and are contradictory to what the individual is conveying. Despite this useful tactic of detecting deception, microexpressions do not show what intentions or thoughts the deceiver is trying to conceal. They only provide the fact that there was emotional arousal in the context of the situation. If an individual displays fear or surprise in the form of a microexpression, it does not mean that the individual is concealing information that is relevant to investigation. This is similar to how polygraphs fail to some degree: because there is a sympathetic response due to the fear of being disbelieved as innocent. The same goes for microexpressions, when there is a concealed emotion there is no information revealed on why that emotion was felt. They do not determine a lie, but are a form of detecting concealed information. 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. Paul Ekman created a paradigm to determine the confidence in deception apprehension due to the context of the situation and the person to be the liar themselves. The situational factors can be the type of person, any relationships, or the type of lie they are telling, or whether it is the act of withholding information or telling a false information. If a lie is successful, it can be followed by expressions of false delight, which is when happiness expressed in the satisfaction of the deceiver, or deception guilt, which can come on as an expression of fear or sadness.Universality
A significant amount of research has been done in respect to whether basic facial expressions are universal or are culturally distinct. After Charles Darwin had written The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals it was widely accepted that facial expressions of emotion are universal and biologically determined. Many writers have disagreed with this statement. David Matsumoto however agreed with this statement in his study of sighted and blind Olympians. 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. Matsumoto discovered that both blind and sighted competitors displayed similar facial expression, during winnings and loss. These results suggest that our ability to modify our faces to fit the social setting is not learned visually.Facial Action Coding System
The Facial Action Coding System or FACS is used to identify facial expression. This identifies the muscles that produce the facial expressions. To measure the muscle movements the action unit was developed. This system measures the relaxation or contraction of each individual muscle and assigns a unit. More than one muscle can be grouped into an Action Unit or the muscle may be divided into separate action units. The score consists of duration, intensity and asymmetry. This can be useful in identifying depression or measurement of pain in patients that are unable to express themselves.The Facial Action Coding System training manual, first published in 1978 with multimedia supplements, is designed to teach individuals how to detect and categorize facial movements. The guide provides lessons and practice for memorizing action units and combinations of action units. The manual's purpose is to enable practitioners to recognize different physiological attributes of facial expressions, but leaves the interpretation of this data up to other works. Users should not expect to become face-reading experts. It can be particularly useful to behavioral scientists, CG animators, or computer scientists when they need to know the exact movements that the face can perform, and what muscles produce them. It also has potential to be a valuable tool for psychotherapists, interviewers, and other practitioners who must penetrate deeply into interpersonal communications. A new version of FACS by Paul Ekman, Wallace V. Friesen, and Joseph C. Hager is now available with several core improvements, including more accurate representations of facial behaviors and cleaner, digital images. Other related tools for facial expression recognition training include the Micro Expression Training Tool and Subtle Expression Training Tool, both developed by Paul Ekman.
In popular culture
Microexpressions and associated science are the central premise for the 2009 television series Lie to Me, based on discoveries of Paul Ekman. The main character uses his acute awareness of microexpressions and other body language clues to determine when someone is lying or hiding something.They also play a central role in Robert Ludlum's posthumously published The Ambler Warning, in which the central character, Harrison Ambler, is an intelligence agent able to recognize them. Similarly, one of the main characters in Alastair Reynolds' science fiction novel, Absolution Gap, Aura, can easily read microexpressions.
In The Mentalist, the main character, Patrick Jane, can often tell when people are being dishonest. However, specific reference to microexpressions is only made once in the 7th and final season.
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."