So, I was watching the Mentalist a few days ago. It's a show about Patrick Jane, a man who works with the CBI to investigate murders. He uses careful observations and mental tricks to find clues that no one else can find. Also, he uses his knowledge of humans to find out if people are lying or telling the truth. During the last episode, Patrick was showing a murder suspect a house on a lake that belonged to one of the man's enemies. As he was describing the house to the man, Patrick stopped and looked into his eyes. All of the sudden, Patrick came to the conclusion that the man wanted the house. When asked how he knew, Patrick said that when a human sees something he or she wants, his or her pupils dilate.This got me thinking about our psychology class, specifically micro expressions. Knowing the micro expressions of humans that tell if they are lying could be useful to just about anyone. So, I wanted to find out more.
Micro expressions are involuntary facial movements caused by emotion. Unlike regular facial expressions, you can't cover up micro expressions. Whenever a person lies, they flash micro expressions that reveal the truth. However, only a handful of people around the world can read these expressions. These expressions signify seven basic emotions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt. They occur in about 1/20 of a second. I found a link to a micro expression learning tool to test your ability to read micro expressions. It was made Paul Ekman, a professor of psychology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. He has studied micro expressions for more than 30 years and is now considered an expert. He made an interactive slide show to test your ability. It's really hard, but I knew 7 of emotions without cheating (holding the corresponding number). Here's the link.
http://www.cio.com/article/facial-expressions-test
After you take the test, post the score you earned. I'm curious about how good everyone is.
The seven basic emotions and their corresponding facial expressions are shown on this page.
That test was kinda hard. I only got 6 of them but it was see it after i got it wrong. Good idea for a post
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katie. It was really difficult. The pictures flashed so quickly. I only got two right on my first guess but then again I just might not be very good at reading micro expressions.
ReplyDeleteAshalee
I got 3 wrong. It was very difficult at first because you had to pay attention since the expression was so fast, but otherwise it was pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteI only got 7 of them, it was hard to determine what the faces were representing because of how fast the images changed. It was an interesting topic.
ReplyDeletegood article but the test was really hard, i only got five of the questions right.
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in these things as well.. and even though you posted this way way back.. just wanted to let you know.. I got 9 out of 10 ... 1 I looked at twice and got right then... but I did have to see the expression twice
ReplyDeleteThe test page is no longer available.
ReplyDelete