OF THE HUMAN FACE Secrets of the Human Face : New Insights Into the Face and Covert Emotions

Deception is a fundamental aspect of human communication and often is accompanied by facial expressions simulated or concealed to be consistent with the false message. Darwin hypothesized that some facial muscle actions are beyond voluntary control and may “leak” genuine emotion or reveal falsified expressions. Despite uncritical acceptance of this notion in scientific and popular media arenas, little empirical work existed to substantiate these claims prior to our recent studies. Laboratory-based experiments substantiate Darwin’s claims; emotional leakage is most likely to occur during masking (attempting to conceal one’s felt emotion with a simulated expression), particularly when the to-be-concealed emotion is strongly felt. Although individual differences related to emotional intelligence and psychopathic traits in emotional fabrication ability exist, careful attention to the face can also reveal deceit in high-stakes, emotional, real-world situations. Televised footage of a large international sample of individuals emotionally pleading to the public for the return of a missing relative was meticulously coded for emotional presentation. About half of the pleaders eventually were convicted of killing the missing person based on overwhelming evidence. Failed attempts to simulate sadness and leakage of genuine happiness revealed deceptive pleaders’ covert emotions and, in combination with verbal cues, differentiated honest and dishonest pleaders with unprecedented accuracy in the study of deception detection. These findings offer an important and novel advancement in our understanding of involuntary aspects of human communication. Secrets of the Human Face 3 Secrets of the Human Face 4 Secrets of the Human Face: New Insights Into the Face and Covert Emotions My (first author) research team has spent the past decade conducting a comprehensive investigation of how covert emotional information is communicated in the human face. We have coded millions of frames of videotaped facial expressions in both highly-controlled lab experiments and “real-life” emotional scenarios with the goal of solving some of the mysteries and resolving some of the controversies around emotional deception. In this paper, we summarize the key observations to come out of this body of work. In addition to a basic interest in emotional communication, I had practical motivation to pursue this line of research. While interning in a prison during my training as a forensic psychologist, I provided individualized treatment to a psychopathic sexual offender who after eleven months of sessions appeared to me to be making tremendous progress in therapy, assuming responsibility, expressing remorse, and exhibiting empathy for his victims. As I was preparing a positive evaluation of his therapeutic progress, his journal was confiscated during a cell-search. In the journal, he detailed his progressively more violent and sadistic sexual fantasies, suggesting that his criminal tendencies had been exacerbated during the course of treatment, and revealed the fact that he was “fooling his stupid shrink”. This incident sparked my interest in the deceptive behaviour and our natural (in)ability to detect deception. What made me believe this seemingly sincere offender? And how can I (and other professionals) accurately detect such deceit in the future? The Face as a Window to the Soul The complex musculature of the human face and its direct relation with affective processes of the brain makes it a rich canvas upon which humans communicate their emotional Secrets of the Human Face 5 states and from which we infer those of others. In daily life, we “read” the faces of intimates and strangers to make inferences about their emotions and intentions, and adopt expressions ourselves to communicate genuinely or falsely how we are feeling. Indeed, the face is a primary focus of attention upon meeting a stranger. Valenza, Simion, Cassia, and Ultimà (1996) found that infants showed a visual preference for face-like patterns. Throughout life, it continues to be the focal point in social situations, directing both conversation and decisions about further interaction. Based on a glimpse of a stranger’s face, observers form instantaneous (less than 1/10 of a second) and enduring impressions about that individual’s trustworthiness (Porter & ten Brinke, 2009; Willis & Todorov, 2006). The foundation of this process originates in our evolutionary past; the discrimination of friend versus foe likely involved an assessment of the stranger’s emotional state and physical strength and was one of the earliest interpersonal judgments to evolve (e.g., Todorov, 2008; Williams & Mattingley, 2006). Indeed, some traits and intentions can be accurately inferred from a glimpse of a stranger’s face. For example, personality traits such as extraversion and conscientiousness can be judged at an accuracy level greater than chance just by viewing a face (Little & Perrett, 2007). Further, observers can distinguish males seeking relationships versus those who are interested in casual sex, just by looking at their faces (Boothroyd et al., 2008). In an investigation of the undefined concept of “creepiness”, we found that pictures of men were creepier than women and sexual offenders were perceived as creepier than those of other violent offenders (Porter, ten Brinke, Shaw, & Strugnell, 2011). However, no available evidence suggests that first impressions of trustworthiness, specifically, are accurate. In a recent study, participants provided trustworthiness ratings of violent America’s Most Wanted criminals and philanthropists (Porter, England, Juodis, ten Brinke, & Wilson, 2008). Participants were able to distinguish between the Secrets of the Human Face 6 two groups only slightly above the level of chance. Despite the inaccuracy of these assessments, they can have a strong biasing effect on subsequent decisions about the individual concerned. In a mock juror paradigm, participants more often rendered a guilty verdict for untrustworthyversus trustworthy-looking defendants accused of (the same) homicide (Porter, Gustaw, & ten Brinke, 2010). Thus, although we ‘read’ faces on a daily basis, findings suggest we are subject to error, sometimes resulting in ‘misreading’ a face and the construction of an inaccurate impression/representation of a person’s actual intentions, emotional state, or character more generally. The inaccuracy of trustworthiness assessments may be due, in part, to the evolved ability to alter facial expression in order to conceal or fabricate emotional information. In the modern context, the identification of falsified emotions is important in everyday life, the courts, parole hearings, politics, and corporations. Jung (1959) proposed that individuals have a preferred persona (or mask-like) archetype or image that we choose to project to the world in order to protect ourselves from negative evaluations. Most people want to display themselves in a way that will benefit them in all areas of their life (e.g., work, relationships, etc.), even if that means presenting a false persona. So how do we know when people are being honest? Deception is a fundamental aspect of human interaction that often acts to promote social cohesion. Research finds that people lie, on average, two times per day (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkerdol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996). For example, the wise husband responds with a nod and a loving smile when his wife asks his opinion of her new dress, regardless of his genuine evaluation. Despite the ubiquity of deception in our daily lives, we are naturally poor lie detectors (Bond & DePaulo, 2006). Is a passenger a potential threat? Is an offender’s emotional display/remorse in a parole or sentencing hearing genuine? Much research demonstrates that Secrets of the Human Face 7 observers generally are unable to discriminate genuine vs. faked expressions (Porter & ten Brinke, 2008; Porter et al., 2010), despite high confidence in such evaluations (Vrij & Mann, 2001). Porter, ten Brinke, and Wilson (2009) found that psychopaths were 2.5 times as likely as their counterparts to be successful in parole applications, which we hypothesized related to Academy Award-winning acting jobs. Clearly, credibility assessment is not a common sense task, contrary to the views of the Supreme Court of Canada (R. v. B. (K. G.), 1993). Alluding to my personal incident I discussed earlier, it is of particular interest to me how people can deceive others so easily while speaking face-to-face. Previous research has suggested that individuals generally associate face-to-face lying with various nervous behaviours such as speech disturbances, gaze aversion, body movement, and fidgeting (e.g., Vrij, 2008). These stereotypes are also shared by the judiciary; in Morales v. Artuz, the judge noted that ‘seeing a witness’s eyes has sometimes been explicitly mentioned as of value in assessing credibility’. However, assessments of credibility based on nervous behaviour are likely to be inaccurate because these indicators are not substantiated by empirical research (Vrij, 2000) and can also be confounded by other factors, such as culture. For example, many aboriginals avert their gaze as a sign of respect when interacting with other individuals (see Porter & ten Brinke, 2009). Given the apparent complexities of using voluntary body language behaviours as a cue to deception, recent research in my lab has focused on emotional deception via the alteration of universal facial expressions (happiness, sadness, fear, contempt, disgust, surprise, anger; Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen, 1969; Matsumoto & Willingham, 2006) – a concept dating to the 19 century. Emotional Expression as a Cue to Deception Secrets of the Human Face 8 In 1862, Duchenne, a French neurologist, conducted the first experimental study that examined prototypical expressions of emotion, using electrical stimulation of facial muscles. He noted that the common notio