Paul Ekman, regarded by the American Association of Psychology (APA) as one of the most prestigious and influential psychologists of the 21st century, is one of the greatest benchmarks in the field of lie detection and the relationship between emotions and facial expressions. In addition, he was one of the discoverers of microexpressions, in this article we explain what they are, how they appear and how important they are.
Ekman believes that microexpressions manifest themselves during a conversation, can and usually go completely unnoticed by the receiving potential, however, their importance manifests itself because they are fast facial movements, not controlled by the person and represent different emotions.
- Paul Ekman is one of the people who knows best how sincere emotions are in our faces.
- He defines himself as “a scientist whose discoveries have changed the way I think.
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After years of spreading the peculiarities of emotions, he obtained funding for a project that became the turning point of his career, an approval that allowed him to study, in situ and in depth, the origin of emotions in more than twenty cultures.
Their results served to establish their best-known generalization: emotions are not cultural, but biological, so they are universal and result from genetic expression.
Thanks to these genes, certain groups of muscles in the face contract simultaneously in a particular pattern depending on the emotional state in which the person is located. If she’s happy, she’ll make radically different moves than if she were overwhelmed by fear. In turn, two other ideas arise from this idea.
The first is that the appearance of microexpressions occurs in a similar way in all human beings, that is, all people, regardless of their culture, development, how they were raised or how they spent their childhood, for example, open their mouths to express their surprise.
The second, that there is a set of universal emotions closely linked to these small gestures. A little smile, a quick forehead bone, a sudden itchy nose?These are all small variations in facial muscles, virtually imperceptible and involuntary, which are often a reflection of our emotions.
Therefore, its central proposition is that, since there are well-defined emotions and a pre-defined way of expressing them, it is entirely plausible that others can recognize, understand and even use them for certain purposes.
We need emotions to make decisions, communicate, understand others, or pass on our genes. With this motivation, Ekman was able to identify about 10,000 different expressions. In 1978, with Wallace Friesen, he classified them with his Facial Coding System, 40 FACS. – 41, based on the anatomy of facial muscles.
Can you tell us what emotion we’re talking about if someone bends their nose and upper lip, could you tell if someone gets scared just by looking you in the eye?Here are what microexpressions correspond to these 6 universal emotions:
Paul Ekman argues that the most common reason people lie is to avoid the punishment derived from breaking a rule and thinks that due to the current concern for the honesty of those around us, micro-expressions can help us detect lies.
These microexpressions last a twenty-fifth of a second. This is imperceptible to the human eye if it is not trained to do so, so the psychologist decided to test some 15,000 people, showing that 99% of participants were unable to perceive them.
From there he began to emphasize the impact of being able to read this in others, then began teaching how to catch liars and discover those microexpressions that denounce them, the most surprising thing is that it allows you to learn how to detect them. In just 32 hours!
The key is to identify variations/dissonances of the person’s normal behavior, for example, if someone says something and at the same time shrinks slightly from shoulders, they are probably lying, the same can happen when you scratch your nose or move your head to one side.
However, nothing is 100% reliable. There’s always a small margin of error. As writer Roberto Espinosa shows, the reliability of detection depends more on who he analyses than who gestures: “It is said that there are no bad liars, but good experts. “
Being sufficiently trained in the detection of microexpressions can be facilitated by automating them, that is, they cannot be hidden or disguised absolutely, although we can try to hide them at any time, it is practically impossible to hide them all the time. .
Even the most liars and those most accustomed to deceiving others are unable to control their unconscious indefinitely and, sooner or later, to the insightful eye, they end up stinging.
It is also true that, although training is essential to be able to decipher these microexpressions, sometimes it is not so simple, in practice detecting them happens to pay close attention to the other person, stare at them, observe them remotely, etc. This can be quite uncomfortable for the person being evaluated inadvertently.
Besides, sometimes? The noise of the information, which masks the way gestures are performed, also affects analysis, so sometimes it is necessary to use specialized equipment to capture these moments.
Most lies succeed because no one cares about verifying the truth
According to Paul Ekman, microexpression detection training can help us develop certain social and emotional skills, including our emotional intelligence or empathy, improving control of our own emotions.
Hiding an emotion is also lying.
Being able and quick to identify these small gestures allows us to recognize certain behaviors and better appreciate the feelings of others, as well as to be more aware and express our own emotions more accurately, thus increasing the possibility of others understanding us. As a result, we become more sensitive to the emotional scale, which improves our connection with other people.
Many compare it to characters like Darwin, Wundt, Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Cattell or Sternberg, no doubt Paul Ekman has become one of the emblems of current psychology, his contributions in this context have laid the foundations for a true educational emotional current.