Recently researchers at Michigan State University led by professor of communication, Timothy Levine, are putting Lie to Me viewer’s deception skills to the test in a new study entitled “The impact of Lie to Me on viewers’ actual ability to detect deception”.

The study which was published in the Journal of Communication Research, finds watching Lie to Me “increases suspicion of others but that is reduces one’s ability to detect deception”, according to an article written by Tom Jacobs of Miller-McCune.

Levine and his colleagues experiment involved 108 undergraduates at the university. Thirty-three of these individuals watched an episode of Lie to Me, another thirty-five watched a different crime drama called Numb3rs while the last third of the group did not watch either program. The group that did not watch either show served as the control group.

After they watched various episodes (or none at all), the participants saw a series of 12 taped interviews where half were telling the truth and the other half lied consistently. The participants were instructed to state whether they believed the person in the interview was being honest or deceptive.

Interestingly, according to the article written by Jacobs, the control group was the most accurate, correctly identifying the person as honest or dishonest 65.2 percent of the time. The Numb3rs group came in second, at 61.7 percent, while the Lie to Me group came in last at 59.5 percent.

The results of this show illustrated that Lie to Me viewers were “no better at distinguishing truths from lies but were more likely than control participants to misidentify honest interviewees as deceptive. Watching Lie to Me decreases truth bias thereby increasing suspicion of others while at the same time reducing deception detection ability” according to the study’s abstract.

It seems a larger sample size may be necessary in the future and we would be interested in reading the complete study. However, the show suggests what we have been suggesting all along: that viewers of Lie to Me shouldn’t accept all information that is presented on the show as accurate or think they know more about lie detection without getting formal training.

For his doctoral thesis at Umea University in Sweden, Shafiq ur Rehman developed a new tool that converts facial emotions into special tactile sensations for the visually impaired.

Rehman’s study is based on the idea that much of communication (up to 90%) is communicated non-verbally and that facial expressions of emotion are one of the most complex signal systems that we have as humans. Other recent studies have suggested that people also imitate other people to interpret their emotions. Because individuals who are visually impaired are not able to see facial expressions, this can create “barriers to social interactions”.

To allow visually impaired individuals to “see” emotions, Rehman and his team have developed a new technology “based on an ordinary web camera, hardware and a tactile display”. Using the webcam to capture certain facial expressions on the face, the hardware converts the emotion into a series of vibrational patters that correspond with the expressed emotion.

The project was funded by the Swedish Research Council and its main focus has been to characterize different emotions and to “find a way to present them by means of advanced biomedical engineering and computer vision technologies”.

Rehman’s complete article, entitled “Vibrotactile Rendering of Human Emotions on the Manifold of Facial Expressions” can be found by clicking here

For those that may not be familiar with the story, Astorga is accused of shooting Deputy McGrane after being pulled over for a traffic stop on New Mexico Highway 337 4 years ago.

Jury deliberations for Astorga’s trial began yesterday and a verdict is anticipated to be reach within the next few days.

Dr. David Matsumoto spoke to Misa Maruyama of KOB news in Albuquerque on Sunday night to discuss what he saw in Astorga’s testimony.

The complete article can be found here

Burns, who works in the Homeland Security Advanced Research Project Agency is developing “mal-intent”- software and technology that could potentially detect nonverbal cues from people who harbor malicious intent. The technology being developed “represents the future in screening: trying to find the bomber, not just the bomb” according to the article, written by Bob Drogin.

Larry Willis, who works in the Human Factors Division, is developing technology that can spot microexpressions, that “may or may not indicate hostile intent.”

Dr. Paul Ekman, the scientific consultant of Lie to Me and one of the leading researchers in the field, doubts that high tech-tools can do any better than behavior detection officers. He also dismisses Willis’ work and says that “The research already shows that not every person intending hard shows micro-expressions” and that the program is “A waste of time.”

However, other leading researchers in the field disagree.

Dr. Mark Frank, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo and deception expert, calls the work “worthwhile” and says that “If the science helps us make better guesses, I think that it is very productive and at least it’s the right approach.”

Dr. David Matsumoto agrees with Dr. Frank. Although he says a 100% foolproof system is never going to happen, he also says that its possible to “deploy something that better than what we have now” and that “both programs are well on their way to doing that.”

To view the complete article, click here

In his article entitled “The Evolution of Emotions”, Dr. Matsumoto outlines the evolution of emotions, basic emotions, and their triggers and functions.

Take a look at the complete article in Spanish by clicking here

Take a look at the original article in English by clicking here

Are you excited?!

Click here to view the embedded video.

But what if your computer could tell how you feel too?

That day may be closer than we think.

University of Texas at Dallas computer scientist Yang Liu recently received a 3-year, $350,000 grant from Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Young Investigator Research Program to explore emotion recognition and modeling in speech processing.

By studying features such as pitch, intonation patterns and word usage, Liu and her team of graduate students will then associate these features with the basic emotions such as anger, sadness, happiness and surprise.

According to the University of Texas news, “The research could drive a virtually unlimited range of applications. A tutoring system, for example, could detect frustration or boredom in a student – a sure sign the student is not learning and a different approach is needed – perhaps triggering the application to slow down the lesson or load a different one. An interactive voice-response system that detects anger or frustration in a customer might transfer that person to a human operator. An emotion component could be added to a polygraph or lie-detector system used by law enforcement. And such technology could assist in non-pharmacological treatment of social anxiety disorders”.

This news is both fascinating and insightful to those who study emotions and provide insight into the technologies that may become available in the near future.

Click here to view the embedded video.

ABC’s 20/20 ran a show this past weekend about a woman named Biurny Peguero who falsely accused a man named William McCaffrey of raping her back in December of 2005.

Despite the lack of DNA evidence, McCaffrey was sentenced to 20 years in prison, mostly because of Peguero’s emotional testimony during the trial. He served nearly 4 years of his 20 year sentence before he was set free this past December.

Peguero herself pled guilty to perjury in December, admitting she deliberately lied about the rape. She may face up to 3 years in prison for the lie she told.

This story is fascinating, especially since it illustrates how lies can spiral rapidly out of control. Although Peguero’s lie may have been seemingly harmless to herself, it had drastic consequences to everyone involved.

Be careful when watching this video- Peguero is less likely to exhibit hot spots or microexpressions, because she doesn’t have anything to hide anymore.

If someone could find video of her before she confessed to lying, that would be ideal to compare and contrast her reactions before and after her admission.

The complete episode can be found by clicking here

Research has shown that infants as young as 27 weeks old begin to recognize facial expressions of emotion.

A series of studies have shown that babies between the ages of 5 to 7 months recognize facial expressions of happiness, sadness, fear and surprise.

How well can your child recognize emotions? You may be surprised.

Test their ability to read certain emotions, by having them take this fun, free game here

In the study entitled, Smile Intensity in Photographs Predicts Longevity published in the Journal of Physiological Science, Kruger and Abel analyzed the smiles of 230 Major League Baseball Players from 1952.

They classified the player’s smiles as “no smile” (having no smile), “partial smile” and “Duchenne Smile”, named after a 19th century French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne.

The researchers defined the Duchenne Smile as “cheeks being both raised, corners of the mouth being raised and crow’s-feet wrinkles around the eyes”.

The results of their study was fascinating to say the least. Kruger and Abel found of that the Major League Players who had died before June of 2009, their longevity directly correlated with their happiness as measured by their degree of smile.

As stated in a March 25, 2010 Time Magazine article, “players with no smiles lived an average 72.9 years; those with partial smiles lived an average of 75 years; and those with big, authentic grins lived an average of 79.9 years”.

Kruger and Abel’s study suggests that that smiling broadly, genuinely and more frequently may lead to a longer life.

To see Dr. Matsumoto’s explanation of Duchenne Smiles, see the video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

To test your knowledge of enjoyment and social smiles, take our Smile Game by clicking here