​Paul Ekman and the Study of Microexpressions

Paul Ekman Not only is he one of the most popular psychologists in the media (he has participated in the development of the series Lie to Me and the film Inside Out), he is also one of the pioneers in one of the most interesting areas of behavioral science: the study of language. verbal and, more specifically, of the microexpressions.

Knowing more about them could be very useful in improving our understanding of communication and the nature of basic and universal emotions, if they really exist.

What are microexpressions?

Basically, A microexpression is a facial expression made involuntarily and automatically and that, despite lasting less than a second, theoretically it could be used to know the emotional state of the person who performs it.

According to the ideas of Ekman and other researchers, microexpressions are universal, since they are the result of the expression of certain genes that cause certain muscle groups of the face to contract at the same time following a pattern each time a basic emotional state appears. Two other ideas are derived from this: that microexpressions always appear in the same way in all people of the human species regardless of their culture, and that there is also a group of universal emotions linked to these brief facial gestures.

Through the study of microexpressions, Paul Ekman has tried to see basic psychological and physiological mechanisms that are theoretically expressed in the same way in all human societies and that, consequently, would have a high degree of genetic heritability.

The basic emotions

The link between facial microexpressions and the 5 basic emotions proposed by Paul Ekman is based on the idea of ​​adaptive potential: if there are a series of well-defined emotions and a predefined way of expressing them, that means that other members of the species can recognize them and Use this information for the good of your community.

Thus, dangerous situations or those in which the importance of an element of the environment causes individuals to become very emotionally activated, others will be able to know instantly that something is happening, and they will start looking for clues to understand what is happening in greater detail. This idea is not novel; Charles Darwin He already advanced it in his writings about emotions in humans and animals. However, more recent researchers have specialized in this field of study, dedicating much of their time and effort to analyzing this small area of ​​psychology and physiology.

The role of education

It should be said that it is still not known for sure whether universal facial microexpressions exist. To do this, one would have to know in depth the typical behavior of the members of all the cultures that exist, and this is not the case. Furthermore, in a laboratory environment it is difficult to make people experience the emotions that researchers want, and not others.

That is why, even though Paul Ekman has made efforts to investigate the extent to which universal basic emotions exist and facial gestures associated with them, it is always possible that there is an exception in some remote corner of the planet and the theory of universality falls apart.

However, evidence has been found that, at least for a few thousandths of a second, members of many cultures express their feelings through the same expressions.

For example, in a study published in Psychological Science carried out based on the analysis of films that showed how athletes who were competing for a medal in the Olympic Games behaved, it was found that everyone showed the same type of microexpressions immediately after knowing they had won or lost, although then each one modulated these gestures depending on the culture to which they belonged. This is exactly the essence of the microexpressions about which Paul Ekman has theorized: first an automatic and stereotyped reaction to emotional stimuli appears, and right after each person takes control over his or her gestures.

Gestures that betray us

Another of the most interesting ideas about microexpressions is that, since they are automatic, they cannot be “hidden” or disguised with absolute success.

That is, if a person is trained enough to detect microexpressions, You will have a certain knowledge about the other person’s emotional state even if they try to avoid it (unless you cover your face, of course).

However, in practice, recognizing these microexpressions is not so simple, since in everyday situations there is a large amount of “noise” in the form of information that masks the way in which you can see how the small facial muscles move. someone. Additionally, specialized equipment is often needed to capture a clear image of these brief moments.

Detect microexpressions

If microexpressions are generated following stereotypical patterns, it is logical to think that a method can be developed to systematically identify each of them. Therefore, in the 70s Paul Ekman and his colleague Wallace V. Fiesen developed a system to label each type of facial movement linked to an emotional state based on the work of a Swedish anatomist named Carl-Herman Hjortsjö This tool was called Facial Coding System (in English, FACS, for Facial Action Coding System).

However, this does not even remotely mean that lies can be detected just by identifying microexpressions, let alone something similar to reading thoughts. The fact that these gestures are automatic due to the expression of genes means that, at the same time, the information that the microexpressions provide us is tremendously ambiguous, since contextual details are not “translated” through muscle movements in the face

A microexpression can be an indication of whether someone is sad or not at a given moment, but it does not tell us anything about what produces that feeling. The same happens with microexpressions linked to fear. They can be an indicator that there is a fear that the lies that have been told will be exposed, or they can also express the fear that we will believe that what has been said are lies.

As always, the study of human behavior rarely makes great strides, and Paul Ekman’s work on microexpressions is nothing like a Rosetta Stone of mental states. It can be useful, yes, to learn more about our genetic predispositions when it comes to expressing emotions, and can also be studied to learn empathy patterns and improve communication. However, since by definition microexpressions are automatic and unconscious, it would be impossible to directly influence them.