No, you can't really tell if someone is lying from their facial expressions
No, you can't really tell if someone is lying from their facial expressions
"Experts" are selling classes on how to tell if someone is lying from reading expressions. They're lying to you
By MARIA HARTWIG
PUBLISHED MARCH 13, 2022 7:30PM
What does the CIA have in common with Disney, Apple, Harvard and the New York Police Department? According to Paul Ekman, the staff of these companies and agencies how many is unclear have taken his classes on how to detect lies based on so-called "micro-expressions." Ekman, a famous psychologist who was once one named of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine and was ranked fifteenth among the most influential psychologists by a scientific journal, sells "Micro Expressions Training Tools" on his website. For $299/year, it is possible to purchase "all the tools to help read micro expressions plus tools to help you respond to the emotions you detect in other people."
Ekman's training revolves around learning how to read facial expressions in order to spot what he calls micro-expressions supposedly, fleeting and subtle expressions of a strong emotion that a person is trying to suppress. According to the website, training to detect micro-expressions is "appropriate for those whose work requires them to evaluate truthfulness and detect deception, such as police and security personnel, as well as those in sales, education, and medical professions."
The purpose of this training is to hone a person's social abilities; more specifically, their ability to navigate the tricky territory of determining whether a person is being honest or deceptive. It is not surprising that there is a range of professionals who have received this training, since judgments of deception and truth are common in numerous settings, indeed particularly in law enforcement.
Ekman's theory is that our emotions, along with the expressions that accompany them, are hardwired in our brains; and, if a person experiences an emotion that they wish to mask, hide or distort, a brief display of the experienced emotion will flash across the face automatically.
....(snip)....
All this would be well and good if micro-expression training actually worked to help people detect deception. The problem is that there is not a shred of evidence that such training works. Worse, law enforcement and intelligence agencies who rely on the training are wasting precious resources on pseudoscience. As an expert in the psychology of deception and its detection, pseudoscience in this domain troubles me deeply. ...........(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/13/lie-detection-pseudoscience/
Walleye
(30,718 posts)I think people have sort of a built-in lie detector if they would just trust it and use it. It involves thinking, though, not just looking at expressions
Orrex
(63,084 posts)Last edited Sun Mar 13, 2022, 11:05 PM - Edit history (1)
In the early 2000's a cop (former) friend gave me a book on the subject that had been part of his training five years before.
He shared one of the key elements of his training that I recalled during John Oliver's piece on wrongful conviction: my (former) friend stated confidently "no one gives a false confession."
If you go in with that attitude, paired with the belief that you can magically divine truth or falsehood from the way someone positions their knees, of course you're going to harass a suspect until they crack. Because there's no false confession, right?
empedocles
(15,751 posts)'' . . . What does all of this mean in practical terms? There are two clear takeaways. First, across decades of research and close to one million research participants, the evidence for the Better-Than-Average Effect is nearly undeniable. During a scientific moment where popular effects are increasingly challenged both by new theories and through direct replication attempts, the finding that people see themselves as above average appears to be robust, pervasive, and by most accounts, large.''
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/getting-along-and-getting-ahead/202001/people-think-theyre-better-average-how-much-better#:~:text=Psychology%20Today%20readers%20will%20likely%20be%20familiar%20with,above%20average
[Some here may remember G. Keillor's 'Lake Wobegone', where all the children were above average. ]
Response to empedocles (Reply #4)
NullTuples This message was self-deleted by its author.
SCantiGOP
(13,856 posts)And children under 12 years old.
After that, they pick up the lifelong talent of being able to lie convincingly.
Chainfire
(17,305 posts)Without that, we would never get along with each other.
Chainfire
(17,305 posts)asking the questions believe subject will lie, that is what he or she will see. The same goes for lie detectors, they are just bullshit.
Now, if you start waterboarding them or ripping out fingernails, they will tell you anything that you want to hear...."Is it safe?"
appalachiablue
(41,052 posts)Tomconroy
(7,611 posts)smiling immediately after telling you s lie.
Collimator
(1,639 posts)in my opinion, a legitimate thing. However, I don't think that it can be packaged into a finite-timed training. Like musical ability or some other talents, it is a gift--and sometimes a curse.
It is a gift that can be honed and some aspects of analyzing human behavior can be drummed into people to instill a basic skill-set. And yet a person forced to learn their scales on a piano may never play with any ease or passion, and they certainly can't be trained to write beautiful music. Other people never learn to read music, but they can play with great feeling and even invent pretty tunes.
So it is with dealing with human beings. Almost everyone learns the essential social skills, but some are more emotionally intelligent and sensitive to the nuances of verbal and non-verbal communication.
And then there are a-holes, conmen and sociopaths.
Martin68
(22,671 posts)which are very subtle and fleeting, is another question. I believe some people can develop the skill. I suspect cats and dogs are very attuned to detecting micro-expressions in humans, as well as very subtle changes in tone and expression in speech.
Lucky Luciano
(11,242 posts)
I used machine learning techniques to study the facial expressions of poker players to determine when they may be bluffing or when they want to conceal a good hand. I said my AI techniques found 13 facial characteristics to tell me when other players were lying. I also said that I use these techniques in real life to determine when others are lying and it always works.
I was excused from jury duty.
One of the attorneys asked me if I could catch up with him afterwards to hear about my techniques. I didnt have the heart to tell him I was lying.
mia
(8,356 posts)Thank you for the good read, Lucky Luciano.
You lived up to your name.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Lucky Luciano
(11,242 posts)Ziggysmom
(3,374 posts)FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)Joinfortmill
(14,239 posts)I think lying is a kind of survival instinct learned in childhood.