Stuff You Should Know - What are microexpressions?

Episode Date: March 17, 2009

Microexpressions are brief facial cues that reveal a person's true intentions. Listen in as Chuck and Josh discuss the subtle art of reading faces in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast-drying solution especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. Welcome, people. And this is Stuff You Should Know. It is. And I'm about to tell Chuck. You guys should listen

to this. Chuck, did you know there's a theory that there are two kinds of learning? Spill it. So there's one called cognitive learning, which is book learning. Right. Where you like you read, you know, an article and you read it again and again and you try to like make connections and then. And street smarts? That's, that actually, yeah, that kind of would fall into the other category, which is called intuitive learning. Oh, okay. And apparently, yeah, some people have more of one than the other. Right. Ultimately, we would all, under this theory of learning, do both simultaneously. So you're reading a book and you're taking in knowledge and that's cognitive learning. Intuitive learning is where basically we're picking up cues unconsciously

from our environment around us and we're learning from that. So what you would call instinct or gut feeling, it would be the result of basically an unconsciously processed evaluation of, you know, some stimuli in the environment. So street smarts? Street smarts, it is. Absolutely. Yep. And part of that, Chuck, actually is, well, we're about to talk about micro expression, so I know you've heard of them. But that's part of these unconscious cues and information that we pick up without knowing about it, which would make it unconscious, as I said. I really liked this article. That was very cool. I did too. It was written by Tom Schief. A friend of yours, right? Oh, BFF. So Josh, we're going to talk about micro expressions,

which are in the face. We have to talk about the expressions you can make. Facial expressions. Yes. The broad, plain ones that we see. Right. Right. So yeah, Chuck, as I understand, there's seven universal facial expressions, right? Yes. Quickly. They are happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, and contempt. And what was the name of the guy who traveled the world studying these Ekman? Yeah, Paul Ekman. Paul Ekman. Yeah. He went around the world to a bunch of disparate cultures all over the place and studied facial movements and found that those seven are universal. Right. He was trying to basically get to the root of whether or not it's a learned thing or not. And I thought, I love this man. I thought it was so cool that he

could go to like the furthest reaches of a Borneo and they perhaps might make the same contempt face as I do. Yeah, or disgust. Or disgust. I can see smiling, fear, that kind of thing is universal. But that's kind of strange because that suggests that those are universal feelings then. Right. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So basically Ekman documented all of these seven universal facial expressions, but that wasn't enough. Right? No. No. He and a guy named W.V. Friesen actually mapped out the muscles that create facial expressions. And what they came up with is the facial action coding system. So cool. Which sounds like it should be like on the front of a comic book. Right. It is. With a fist punching out. And what the FACS does is it measures the movements of

facial muscles and expresses them in action units. Yeah, AUs. Yeah. So a raised eyebrow is AU1, right? Right. And it also denotes whether or not this movement was voluntary or involuntary. And it also measures intensity. So like a smile, the strength of a smile is measured in six degrees. Right. And so you pop all this stuff together and you apply it to our knowledge of the seven universal expressions. And you can say just by analysis of these facial muscles exactly what emotion is going on. Yeah. I think it's so cool. It is very cool. And conceivably useful. There's this stuff called facial skin, facial recognition systems. Yeah. And right now as it stands, they're kind of hit or miss. They tried one in Logan Airport in Boston. And it was like 61%

accurate, which isn't enough because if you're going to be stopping people based on, you know, their facial expression, it needs to be a lot higher than that. No, were they studying micro expressions or okay? Yeah. But also there's software out there that can look for fugitives in a crowd based on the FACS and what Eichmann and Friesen came up with. Right. But yes, no. The one at Logan Airport, not micro expressions. Gotcha. That's another one that I think FEMA, no, Homeland Security. TSA. Yeah. TSA is using, it's like a trailer and you walk through and like, I think they show you stuff that's supposed to create like a facial or micro expression if you're uncomfortable. Right. And I don't think it's in use commercially yet. I think if they

were smart, they would hire my wife. Oh, is she good at that? Oh, she is. Not only does she have a keen gut instinct on things, which is pretty accurate, I must say. But yeah, she can read body language and facial expressions like nobody's business. Well, if she can read micro expressions, that would make her part of just 10%, an estimated 10% of people who can pick up on micro expressions when they're shown them. Yeah. I would say that's her for sure. Yeah. I cannot fool her ever. Okay. So Chuck, we've got facial expressions down and we know that not everybody can consciously pick up on micro expressions. What are micro expressions? Well, it's basically, it's not one thing, but it's super fast. Sometimes as fast as one 25th of a second. That's fast. And it's

just a really, really quick facial cue that like you said, not many people even notice sometimes. Right. But we're still, again, we're picking it up on an unconscious level. So the information's in there, right? Right. So when you are talking to some, just kind of a slimy guy, and you're getting a slimy impression from him, you're not quite sure why because he's smiling at you. Like I am now. Exactly. But see, right there, right there, I just saw that look of contempt. Right. So now I don't trust you, but I'm not quite sure why. Right. Which I think in that, because facial expressions are generally considered a revelation of the real emotion that's going on, it lends itself to the idea that you should trust your instincts. If you get a bad feeling from

somebody, run away or knife them, or do something, don't just listen to like their plain expression. Right. That could be the micro expression. If you've ever had that feeling like, I don't know what it is about that guy, but something about him that you may be picking up on very valid micro expressions. Right. And again, they're fast, and 125th of a second, and most people can't pick them up, but that doesn't mean that they are insignificant, I guess, is my point. No, they're very significant. Not everybody is as attuned to faces as your wife, Emily, as though. You know that? Yeah, sure. Well, there's actually a condition, a medical condition. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yes. It's prosopagnosia,

aka recognition impairment, or for just the ultimate lay people, us, face blindness. Okay. And basically, this is, it's an actual medical condition. They're not entirely certain what causes it, but they've seen it. People have been born with it, and they've seen it as the result of stroke or brain damage from a car accident. Right, Chuck? In 1968, five black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues were picked up by the police in Montgomery, Alabama. I was tired and just didn't want to take it anymore. The girls had run away from a reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, and they were determined to tell someone about the abuse they'd suffered there. Picture the worst environment for children

that you possibly can. I believe Mt. Mays was patterned after slavery. I didn't understand why I had to go through what I was going through and for what. I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy Rice, and in a new podcast, I investigate how this reform school went from being a safe haven for black kids to a nightmare, and how those five black girls changed everything. All that on unreformed. Listen to unreformed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence. My god, Chuck, I'm walking into the devil's

stand. The car kills. They just killed everybody that was home. They started pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for this CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So, Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Listen to murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What they do know is that there is some sort of impairment in the

physical form gyrus, which is located in the temporal lobe. And this is the area of the brain that's in charge of processing visual information of faces. It's that specialized. It just has to do with the faces. So, people who have face blindness actually have been shown under MRI scans to this area doesn't activate. It's not working. So, they can't tell if someone is pleased or displeased by looking at their face like they don't understand what a frown or smile means? No, no, no. They'll get that. They'll get that. And apparently, it was a terrible segue. They can still, they're looking at your face and they can see if you're smiling or frowning. What they don't do is make a memory of your face. So, Chuck, how many times have we seen each other since we first

met? One too many. Thousands of times. Let's say thousands. Sure. If one of us had face blindness, it would be like seeing the other one for the first time right now. Oh, as in they wouldn't reckon like I would say, I don't know who this person is? Yeah. Wow. I mean, like I would say, it's me, Josh, but you wouldn't know for certain because you can't recall a memory, a visual memory of my face even though I saw you yesterday or earlier in the hall. I'm a total stranger to you. So, of course, this makes life kind of hard for people with face blindness. Wow. Like, for example, a television show or a movie, try keeping up with that. Like every time you see the main character again, it's like, where's this guy coming from? Right. You'd be watching your Magnum PI and

every episode you think, who is this handsome mustache guy in the Ferrari? I would, but the thought of not being able to keep up with Magnum PI, it's a hellish thought. I would never wish that on you. But that's just movies and TV. Let's talk about real life. There are tricks that people with face blindness have come up with, like every morning. Name tags? No. Name tags would work, sure. But at the same time, how do you know that people aren't playing practical jokes on you? Like the movie Memento. I love that movie. What a great movie. Actually, I'm going to go watch that after this now. One trick that people do at work when they have face blindness is go around and write down. You can look at the name tag on the cubicle and then you write down what that person

is wearing. And then you can kind of maybe study it or access it when you need to, when you're talking to somebody. I have a feeling that people who work with people with actual face blindness are probably fairly forgiving because other than that, there's no other disorder. I don't know who you are. With family members, they'll often create like a safe word, like a password. So if somebody says, hey, it's dad. I need to borrow 500 bucks. He'll also say like geronimo or a patchy or something. A trigger. Pickle, Eskimo, something like that. So you know that it's actually that. Right. That makes sense. It is. But I mean, do you know of any more like interesting disorders than that? That's a pretty good one. That's right up there with alien hand syndrome. I agree. Or

Jerusalem syndrome, which we'll get to eventually, I'm sure. Can we talk about Alex Rodriguez? I'm so proud of you right now, Chuck. I am. Really? Because you came up with this. You're wonderful man. Look at me, little me making it happen. Dr. Ekman, who is the master from what I can tell the micro expressions. He, as everyone knows by now, probably in the sports world, Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez recently came out that he not came out, but he revealed that he used steroids for a couple of years and he famously had an interview with Katie Couric before that that we absolutely said he did not and that he never saw him in the clubhouse and he didn't know much about them. And so good Dr. Ekman recently, as last week actually reviewed

his videotape of this Couric interview and picked up on three micro expressions that indicated that he was lying. Wow. One was a guestural slip, which is when one of your shoulders raises slightly. So it's just micro expression, obviously. So it's not something and this is even on the face, but his shoulder raised slightly quite a few times in the interview when she was asking him blunt questions and he was giving firm denials and he said that it does not, that kind of expression does not line up with firm denials. People that are firmly denying something do not do the guestural slip. One was unilateral contempt. I like this one. He said that Rodriguez would raise the corner of his lip just slightly and that indicates arrogance or a

feeling of superiority. He said he did this a lot and he doesn't know if this might just be a trait that he has. Maybe he thinks he's better than everyone else, I don't know. But he says it definitely doesn't fit with what he was saying about being humbled with the steroid use. And interestingly, it's called unilateral because it's the only emotion with a corresponding facial expression that occurs just on one side of the face. Everything else, anger, surprise, fear, sadness, or bilateral, so both sides of your face would react. Yes. So I thought that was interesting. And the last one was microfear and she pointedly asked him if he had ever been tempted to use illegal drugs. He answered with a simple no and along with that no was a microfear expression

which was basically the horizontal stretching of the lips and he said that basically he looked like he was lying because it's either fear or a fear being caught when you make this expression. Or surprise too, weren't fear and surprise often confused? Yes indeed. Which is actually one of the problems with searching for micro expressions. People with social anxiety have shown to launch into an anxiety attack when they're confronted with micro expressions of surprise or fear because they mistake the surprise look for fear and it's a micro expression. They're already socially anxious as it is. So all of a sudden their guts telling them something interesting. There you go. So yeah. In 1968, five black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues were picked up by the police

in Montgomery, Alabama. I was tired and just didn't want to take it anymore. The girls had run away from a reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children and they were determined to tell someone about the abuse they'd suffered there. Picture the worst environment for children that you possibly can. I believe Mount Mages was patterned after slavery. I didn't understand why I had to go through what I was going through and for what. I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy Rice and in a new podcast I investigate how this reform school went from being a safe haven for black kids to a nightmare and how those five black girls changed everything. All that on unreformed. Listen to unreformed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your

podcasts. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wawa West. Unleashing a wave of violence. My god, talking about walking into the devil's den. The car kills. They just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for the CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So Clay wasn't the only person

who was murdered? Not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, he had one more little one, which I thought was the best. At the end of the interview, he flatly denied taking drugs and he said that he actually slightly knotted his head in the affirmative as he was saying that. Nice. Which, there you have it. Yeah, you can't pull one by Paul Ackman. No. I would not want to be a rod and sit in front of him and try and tell the truth. No. So that's micro expressions. Yes, it is. And there's a lot more to it. I think anybody would be wise to go on to our site and read what are micro expressions. There's pretty in-depth explanation

of facial expressions and the whole shebangs. That's interesting. You can look that up and Chuck, is it listener mail time? Not quite. Oh no, what? We need to give a little shout out to our new blog, which is on our website. It's called Stuff You Should Know. You can find it at HouseTheForks.com and Josh and I post once a day each little interesting news items, tidbits, then we want to engage the Stuff You Should Know nation, get people talking. Yeah. And you can get to it on the homepage, HouseTheForks.com on the right hand side. And without further ado, the chime says listener mail time. You ready, Josh? I was born ready. This is a good one. This came to us from a writer named Lee and that would be the female Lee,

not L-E-E. And Lee heard us talk about the one guy who wrote in talking about that he was possessed by the god Horace and she thought we were very accepting of that notion that sure, who knows, you know, anything could happen. Yeah. So she wrote this about her daughter. She says she has an attractive daughter, very intelligent, lovely and outgoing, and in high school her daughter was only attracted to gay men. One after the other. A lot of times they were not out with their sexuality. Sometimes they didn't even know it yet, but she had a terrible, terrible time falling in love with and being mistreated by gay men because they clearly could not, you know, return the love. Okay. So she was very frustrated by this. She took her daughter to a card reader

and apparently this card reader said the reason that she cannot get over these falling in love with gay men is because she was possessed, her spirit was possessed by a gay man named Jerome from the 1800s. Wow. And this is what the card reader said. She said Jerome is running the show and the kid basically says, I don't like this. I'd like to get rid of this spiritual possession. Jerome's kind of baggage, baggage. And so the card reader, she said, quote, without any fancy, fancy ceremony said that Jerome was gone and she got rid of him. And the lady said after that, her daughter felt different, never fell in love with a gay man again, had healthy relationships. And I just thought this was real interesting. It is very interesting. And as we are always,

our motto is who knows to each his own or her own, who knows what's going on out there in the wacky universe. Agreed. She could have been possessed by a gay man named Jerome from the 1800s. Well, thank you, Lee, and your daughter, and Jerome as well. And if you have a really cool story to share with us or you just want to say hi, no haikus, send an email to stuffpodcasts at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. On the new podcast, The Turning Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine. He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you, only I can see you. What you're doing is larger than yourself, almost like a religion. Like he was a god. Listen to The Turning Room of Mirrors on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.