Microexpresiones

P SY CH OL OG I C AL S CIE N CE

Research Article

Reading Between the Lies
Identifying Concealed and Falsified Emotions in Universal Facial Expressions
Stephen Porter and Leanne ten Brinke Dalhousie University

ABSTRACT—The

widespread supposition that aspects of facial communication are uncontrollable and can betray a deceiver’s true emotion has received little empirical attention. Weexamined the presence of inconsistent emotional expressions and ‘‘microexpressions’’ (1/25–1/5 of a second) in genuine and deceptive facial expressions. Participants viewed disgusting, sad, frightening, happy, and neutral images, responding to each with a genuine or deceptive (simulated, neutralized, or masked) expression. Each 1/30-s frame (104,550 frames in 697 expressions) was analyzed for thepresence and duration of universal expressions, microexpressions, and blink rate. Relative to genuine emotions, masked emotions were associated with more inconsistent expressions and an elevated blink rate; neutralized emotions showed a decreased blink rate. Negative emotions were more difficult to falsify than happiness. Although untrained observers performed only slightly above chance atdetecting deception, inconsistent emotional leakage occurred in 100% of participants at least once and lasted longer than the current definition of a microexpression suggests. Microexpressions were exhibited by 21.95% of participants in 2% of all expressions, and in the upper or lower face only. The face is a dynamic canvas on which people communicate their emotional states and from which they infer theemotional states of others. Observers quickly ‘‘read’’ the faces of strangers to make evaluations of their state (emotions, intentions) and trait characteristics (e.g., Willis & Todorov, 2006). Confronted with a stranger’s face displaying lowered brows, flared nostrils, and ‘‘flashing eyes’’ (Darwin, 1872), one readily recognizes anger and might wisely escape the situation. Often, however, facialAddress correspondence to Stephen Porter, Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada, e-mail: sbporter@dal.ca.

expressions are more difficult to interpret. Complicating their evaluation has been the evolutionary development of interpersonal deception. Modern humans are highly skilled deceivers; observers tend to perform at or slightly above chance injudging whether another person is lying (e.g., Bond & DePaulo, 2006; Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991; Vrij, 2000, 2008). One strategy used to facilitate deception is to alter or inhibit the facial expression that normally accompanies a particular emotion. There are three major ways in which emotional facial expressions are intentionally manipulated (Ekman & Friesen, 1975): An expression is simulated when itis not accompanied by any genuine emotion, masked when the expression corresponding to the felt emotion is replaced by a falsified expression that corresponds to a different emotion, or neutralized when the expression of a true emotion is inhibited while the face remains neutral. It is commonly assumed that attention to certain aspects of facial expressions can reveal these forms of duplicity. TheSupreme Court of Canada has concluded that the assessment of credibility is ‘‘common sense’’ as long as the judge or jury has a clear view of the witness’s face (R. v. B. (K.G.), 1993; R. v. Marquard, 1993). In addition, as a result of terrorist activity, airline security officials in the United States implemented a program to train security staff to identify potential threats in part by readingconcealed emotions in the faces of passengers. The U.S. transportation agency has been training hundreds of ‘‘behavior detection’’ officers and plans to deploy them in major American airports by 2008 (Lipton, 2006). This massive training program is based largely on the work and input of Paul Ekman (T. Frank, 2007), who has argued that aspects of facial communication are uncontrollable and can...