Be Still My Eyebrows: Liars Under Scrutiny Can't Completely Suppress Facial Expressions, Researchers

[steven johnson]

It's true, honey, I ate the last cookie. Damn. How does she always know when I'm lying?

"Executing Facial Control During Deception Situations," a new study he co-authored with former graduate student Carolyn M. Hurley, PhD, reports that although liars can reduce facial actions when under scrutiny, they can't suppress them all.

"Behavioral countermeasures," says Frank, "are the strategies engaged by liars to deliberately control face or body behavior to fool lie catchers. Until this study, research had not shown whether or not liars could suppress elements of their facial expression as a countermeasure.

"Based on the research literature on the nature of facial expressions of emotion, the neuroanatomy of the face, emotional suppression research and IPT research," he says, "we correctly predicted that in interrogations in which deception is a possibility, individuals would be able to significantly reduce their rate and intensity of smiling and brow movements when requested to do so, but would be able to do so to a lesser degree when telling a lie.

"And, since the lower face (and smile in particular) is easier to control than the upper face, we predicted that our subjects would more greatly reduce their rate of smiling, compared to their rate of brow movement, when requested to suppress these actions," he says, "and that turned out to be the case as well. We can reduce facial movements when trying to suppress them but we can't eliminate them completely.

Be Still My Eyebrows: Liars Under Scrutiny Can't Completely Suppress Facial Expressions, Researchers

[xchrom]

1. But have they tried it on a bankster? Nt

[Cirque du So-What]

2. In the immortal words of George Costanza:

'Remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.'

I suspect that sociopaths employ a similar technique to keep from giving a 'tell' when they're lying.

[applegrove]

3. Some day soon they will have functional MRI lie detectors that calibrate

to your brain and they will be able to tell who is telling the truth that way.