Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) – 56 color photos, each exemplifying one of the 7 universal emotions. The photos are equally divided into male and female populations, and are also equally distributed between Japanese and Asian subjects.

Japanese and Caucasian Neutral Faces (JACNeuf) – This photo set contains 56 images of the same subjects that appear in the JACFEE set, each demonstrating a neutral expression.

Combined JACFEE and JACNeuf – Combines all 56 color photos from the Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion Collection and all 56 color photos from the Japanese and Caucasian Neutral Faces Collection to create a set of 112 examples of cross cultural facial expressions.

Standard Expressor Version of the JACFEE – 130 color photographs of 9 different subjects, who exemplify each of the 7 universal emotions. Each expressor also demonstrates a neutral expression. This set is useful in examining judgments of different emotions while keeping the facial characteristics of each subject constant.

For more information on these image sets, please click here

In the same study, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University Alexander Todorov and research specialist Nikolaas Oosterhof attempted to search for a way to define the characteristics of a person’s face that conveys a sense that they can be either trusted or feared. Their study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was titles “The functional basis of face evaluation”.

To perform their studies, the researchers showed unfamiliar faces to subjects and asked them to describe characteristics of the faces that indicated certain personality traits such as aggressiveness. After analyzing the subject’s responses, the researchers narrowed down specific traits that were consistently described as being associated with certain personality traits and then showed the same  faces to another group and “asked them to rate each face for the degree to which it possessed one of the dozen listed traits“.

As a result of the data gathers, Todorov and Oosterhof found that humans make “split-second judgments on faces on two major measures — whether the person should be approached or avoided and whether the person is weak or strong”.

From there, the Princeton researchers used a commercial computer software program that generated composites of humans faces possessing the same characteristics based of their previous research. They asked another group of subjects to look at 300 faces and rate them for traits such as trustworthiness, dominance and threat.

The results of their research showed that there were common features of faces that suggested trustworthiness, dominance and threat. See below for an example of faces that are trustworthy and least trustworthy.

Princeton University researchers have developed a computer program that analyzes the facial features that make people appear trustworthy or fearsome. Below are some of the most extreme examples showing computer-generated faces displaying these characteristics.

Here is a face Princeton researchers found to be most trustworthy in the study.

Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov

This face is considered neutral because of its blank expression.

Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov

Here is a face Princeton scientists concluded to be least trustworthy, according to the study findings.

Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov

As stated in an article released by Princeton University, “While it may be true that people have little control over their facial features, the study also indicates that expressions may be important as well, which could have implications for people in jobs that require extensive interactions with the public. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and a Huygens Scholarship from the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education”.

Schlicht and his team asked participants to make “risky” choices while simultaneously being presented with opponents whose faces “differentially correlated with subjective impressions of trust”. In short, participants were forced to make difficult decisions while seeing a face that was either untrustworthy, neutral or trustworthy.

But what exactly is an untrustworthy or trustworthy face?

According to research out of Princeton University, a trustworthy face looks like this:

Credit: Oosterhof & Todorov

The expression seems to have a slight smile and the eyebrows turned slightly up.

By using an expression simliar to the one shown above, Schlicht and his team of researchers found that ”threatening face information has little influence on wagering behavior, but faces relaying positive emotional characteristics impact people’s decisions”.

According to the abstract of the study, Schlicht concluded that “the best “poker face” for bluffing may not be a neutral face, but rather a face that contains emotional correlates of trustworthiness”.

The study which was published on July 21, 2010 in PLoS One is titled “Human Wagering Behavior Depends on Opponent’s Faces”.

The complete article can be found here.

Complete information regarding Princeton’s study of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces can be found here.

Back at the Lightman Group office, tensions are running high as microexpressions expert Cal Lightman gives Foster the combination to his office safe. After opening it, Foster finds a file on her boyfriend, which includes an image she pulls out. Ria Torres sees the picture and mistakenly labels it as “fear”.

The expression which she wrongly labels can be seen in the opening seconds of this Youtube preview of yesterday’s episode:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although the viewer only sees the expression for a split second, Burn’s expression shows his brows down and together, which is indicative of anger or contemplation. In contrast, the emotion of fear are the brows drawn up and together, often forming wavy lines in the forehead.

You can contrast the 2 expressions by looking at them here:

As you can see, the picture on the left shows the brows drawn down and together, while the expression on the right shows the brows moving up and together. The eyes in the left expression are narrowing, while in the expression on the right, the eyes are wide and open. Often in fear, you see a lot of white above the eyes as you can see in the expression on the right.

New facial expression recognition software helps employees measure their own smiles based on a mathematical scale. This technology has endless potential and could be used in a wide variety of professions, especially for those that interact with individuals on a face to face basis.

In fact, several researchers have suggested that facial expressions affect your mood.

An article in Time Magazine from last year described the work of researcher Marsha Linehan, a University of Washington psychologist who treats suicidal patients. Through her research, Linehan found that “helping patients modulate their facial expressions — relaxing the face when angry, for instance — can help them control their emotions”.

Several other researchers have investigated the positive effects of smiling, such as making you more attractive and lifting your spirits. Smiling has also been proven to help build rapport and create positive relationships with others.

The study, which was the first of its kind, studied congenitally blind (blind from birth)  and sighted judo athletes at the 2004 Paralympic Games and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Their journal article entitled “Spontaneous Facial Expressions of Emotion of Congenitally and Noncongenitally Blind Individuals” was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2009.

During the course of the study, more than 4,800 photographs were captured and analyzed, including images of athletes from 23 countries. According to the findings, there were “no differences between congenitally blind, noncongenitally blind, and sighted athletes, either on the level of individual facial actions or in facial emotion configurations”. This meant that the blind and sighted athletes produced the exact same facial expression, firing the exact same muscles at exactly the same time in similar situations.

For example, below are images of women who had just lost a medal match. The woman on the left is the non-sighted athlete and the woman on the right is the sighted athlete. As you can see, the expressions are both of sadness. The brows are drawn up and together in both pictures, indicating sadness.

These findings “provide compelling evidence that the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions, even among blind individuals”.

In essence, facial expressions of emotion are hardwired into our genes and are not learned culturally.

“Losers pushed their lower lip up as if to control the emotion on their face and many produced social smiles,” Matsumoto said. “Individuals blind from birth could not have learned to control their emotions in this way through visual learning so there must be another mechanism. It could be that our emotions, and the systems to regulate them, are vestiges of our evolutionary ancestry. It’s possible that in response to negative emotions, humans have developed a system that closes the mouth so that they are prevented from yelling, biting or throwing insults”.

References:

San Francisco State University (2008, December 30). Facial Expressions Of Emotion Are Innate, Not Learned. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 17, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/12/081229080859.htm

You have to give Dr. Phil some credit because some of the information he presents is in fact, true. One point that he makes early on in the video is that there is little or no research to support the idea that eye contact (or lack of) has anything to do with deception. This is true.

Back in September of last year, we talked to deception expert Dr. Mark Frank who stated that eye contact (or lack of) is “one of the most misunderstood aspects of deception”. According to Dr. Frank, there have been over 30 studies that have studied eye gaze and its correlation to deception and most of them showed no evidence of a linkage between the two. In fact, other studies have investigated this as well. The complete blog article can be found here.

Dr. Phil also touches on “baselining” someone- or noticing deviations from normal behavior. Dr. Matsumoto agrees that baselining an individual is extremely important- but not as easy as some people think. The quickest and most accurate way to establish a baseline has a lot to do with the context and exact situation you are in. Is it a dinner party with close friends or an interrogation at a police station? Depending on the scenario, the quickest way to establish a baseline will differ drastically.

In addition to these tips, Dr. Phil suggests the following: that liars are over emphatic, don’t use contractions, don’t use personal pronouns, repeat themselves frequently and are too rehearsed. While these tips could be useful in certain situations, they are not always a guarantee that someone is lying. Each situation and each person is different. What’s important to keep in mind is that there is no Pinnochio response when it comes to telling lies.

The cues to deception occur in verbal and nonverbal channels such as verbal style, voice, gestures, verbal content and facial expressions of emotions. Still in all, because the face is the most important signal system we have, we believe (and the research bears this out) that microexpressions and subtle expressions are the key to helping people evaluate truthfulness.

Thus, learning how to rea facial expressions of emotion as well as micro and subtle expressions is one of the most important step in learning how to detect deception in others.

The study which was conducted by researchers Katie Douglas and Professor Richard Porter of the University of Otago in New Zealand, asked 68 individuals suffering from severe depression to participate in a facial expression recognition study.The individuals were shown a total of 96 faces expressing 5 different emotions: anger, sadness, fear, disgust and happiness. They also were shown a series of neutral facial expressions. Their ability to label these expressions were compared to the ability of a control group comprised of 50 healthy individuals

According to the abstract of the study, “A negative interpretation bias was observed in the depression group: neutral faces were more likely to be interpreted as sad and less likely to be interpreted as happy, compared with controls. The depression group also displayed a specific deficit in the recognition of facial expressions of disgust, compared with controls”.

In sum, the researchers found that the healthy control group was much better at recognizing facial expressions of disgust compared to the severely depressed individuals.

Professor Porter suggests in an article written by the University of Otago that there may be various reasons as to why individuals suffering from depression have difficulty recognizing disgust. He suggests that it is possible that the ability to recognize disgust may be correlated with dopamine dysfunction. Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that had many functions. Dopamine plays important roles in behavior and cognition, voluntary movement, motivation, punishment and reward. 

Professor Porter also suggests that when individuals are severely depressed, their ability to process emotions is affected, perhaps affecting their ability to recognize certain emotions.

Douglas and Porter’s findings are both interesting and informative. Their study was funded by the Tertiary Education Commission’s Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship.

We often see different expressions in Lie to Me but don’t often get an explanation as to what expression it is, leaving the viewer to interpret the expression how they want.

This particular expression what seen in this past Monday’s episode of Lie to Me, “Bullet Bump” when the governor is questioned by Lightman. Many people think that this is an expression of shame- especially since the real-life examples shown afterward are of famous men who were unfaithful- Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards and Bill Clinton (all who were curiously politicians as well).

However, Dr. Matsumoto thinks this is an expression of control, where a person is trying to control their emotions and hide how they are truly feeling. Remember, there is no universal facial expression of shame, although judging by these images, it is easy to assume there is.

Here are some of the expressions for those that can’t watch the clip:

For you, we’ve found this video of a furry friend making an “expression” of surprise.

Hope you enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.