The Ultimate Body Language Book

difficult to control, they tend to be reliable indicators of truly felt emotions.
Microexpressions are facial movements or expressions that flash across the face at such a fast rate that
they are barely perceivable. Slow motion replays of high speed videography easily shows what is
difficult to see in real time. The persistence of these cues range from 1/25 to 1/5 of a second. It is the
study of microexpressions that assumes that certain aspects of facial expressions reveal this duplicity to
betray the liar. The research was originally pioneer by Guillaume Duchenne in the 1800s as we saw in
an earlier chapter who discerned the difference between real and fake smiles from the use of the
zygomatic major muscles which pull the corners of the mouth upward and the orbicularis oculi, the
muscle around the eye that pulls the cheek up while lowering the brow. This was the true smile and in
the same way, other unconscious microgestures reveal negative emotions. Presumably it is more
difficult to prevent a felt emotion in addition to creating a false emotion than to simply neutralize the
face. The term “masked” refers to any facial emotion that is either replaced by a different falsified
expression, or is neutralized with no emotion present. This is when microexpressions should be most
evident.
Microexpressions, on the other hand, are tied to leakage in so much as they are an attempt to hide our
true feelings. When we tell a lie, and if we hold any remorse for that lie, repressed or otherwise, our
faces should reveal these cues through facial expressions. When a deceiver tries to repress an emotion
caused by lying, the result is a micro display that briefly comes across the face instead. Other times
these cues happen at a much slower rate and are perceivable by the naked eye. Those that can
intuitively detect lies often score high on the ability to recognize microexpressions.
Lies can be betrayed by signs of emotions as they relate to microexpressions or in other words, it is
difficult for a liar to create emotions that don’t exist. For example, it is difficult to consciously narrow
the red margins of the lips so this can be an indicator of feigned anger. Rarely do we detect these fake
emotions though, which is partly due to the fact that we simply don’t care to know the truth as it serves
no useful purpose to us; there is no reward or incentive.
A study conducted in 2008 by Stephen Porter and Leanne Brinke of Dalhouse University who
examined microexpressions through the examination of high speed video cameras found some, but
incomplete support, for their use in detecting feigned emotions. In fact the emotions they did uncover
occurred over a much longer time which could suggest that they might be easier to detect than
previously though. They also found that it was far easier to neutralize the face (show no expression)
than to create an artificial emotion. In the neutral face, they found a lower blink rate, possibly due to
the effects of claming up, but where a masked face appeared, they found increased blinking likely due
to the stress associated with faking a face. Other studies suggest that liars increase blink rate, as we
recall. They also found that all participants showed at least one inconsistent emotion during deception
showing that leakage might be ubiquitous, but the overall success rate was still only sixty percent.
Confusing the findings further, they found that microexpressions were found throughout positive
emotions.
To date very little study has gone into microexpressions which is surprising given the widespread
attention is had been given. It is currently being utilized as a massive foundation for the U.S.
transportation agency to help identify suspicious passengers. While the science is incomplete with
regards to microexpressions, it is important to realize their existence, real or not, because the next time
we wait to board a plane, the eye in the sky and the personnel on the floor are eagerly watching for our
nervous ticks for the opportunity to pull us aside for more questioning. The rational of course is that
while nervous ticks might not accurately betray a liar all the time, it does form a basis to increase the
level of investigation even if there are occasional misses. The (not too?) distant future might hold