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Truth is Written on Your Face

Psychologists Discover Facial Expressions are Innate and Reveal Secrets

June 1, 2009

Psychologists found that it is possible to determine if someone is lying by evaluating specific facial expressions, which are found to be innate, not learned. Researchers found seven universal expressions for emotions of joy, anger, surprise, contempt, sadness, fear and disgust. By studying Olympic athletes who were born blind researchers observed that their facial expressions after winning and losing were exactly the same as the sighted persons.

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LIES SHOWN IN YOUR LIPS: The human face can be marvelously expressive, using more than 40 muscles to express any and every emotion. A few of these are recognized as culturally universal. A one sided-smile conveys contempt, while an open mouth with a turned-down lower lip and raised upper lip, along with a wrinkled nose suggests disgust. Anger, fear, happiness, joy, sadness, and surprise are also thought to be universal.

INNATE EXPRESSIONS FOR HAPPINESS: Matsumoto studied judo athletes in the Olympic and Paralympics games from 2004. He found that the sighted athletes portrayed the same "true smile" expression after victory as blind athletes. The silver medalists in both competitions most often smiled, but used what is called a "social smile," one that uses only the mouth muscles, and not the movement around the eyes and cheeks indicative of a "true smile." Scientists hypothesize that the universality of these expressions may have developed during our evolutionary history and become innate qualities.

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On the Web: Revealing Expressions

To Go Inside This Science:
David Matsumoto, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
San Francisco State University
www.davidmatsumoto.com
510-236-9171


© 2011 American Institute of Physics