No picture today, but...

Check out this article in the Wall Street Journal about lying in children and adults. It's fascinating!

Survival of the Fibbest: Why We Lie So Well

By Shirley S. Wang
Wall Street Journal Online


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575236171715034884.html?mod=WSJ_article_RecentColumns

When You CAN'T Read Their Face

The New York Times today has a wonderful set of features on Moebius Syndrome, which is a form of congenital facial paralysis that renders people unable to move their faces to express emotion.  What does that mean for their ability to read emotion in the faces of others?  How do they express their own?  And why might they be better at detecting falsehood?  Read the article to find out, and be sure to view the audio slideshow narrated by a social worker with Moebius.  They've also included a podcast on the science.

The Lips Say It All!

Check out this video of a local TV reporter getting angry when not yet off the air -- from what I can see the telepromoter must be down and he was struggling to read from notes.  Watch for the masked grimaces as he reads them, and then right toward the end, watch the face transform into pure rage.

Can you identify the look on the anchor's face as they return to studio?*




*note the pulled back lips and widened eyes -- classic fear face!

We know nobody wants wrinkles....

But, before you do anything rash, check out the celebrity plastic surgery photo gallery on MSNBC.com today! They have over 20 "then and now" pictures of celebrities, with a plastic surgeon pointing out where various procedures might have been done. Take a look and see how facial expressions can be altered by surgical procedures. www.msnbc.com

Facial Profiling

When does facial expression reading bleed over into facial profiling? Dr. Paul Ekman and other experts in the field of facial movement and expression are consistent in their message - you should see a person's neutral face, their baseline expressions, BEFORE you attempt to draw much conclusion from static photos, in particular.

And yet some research seems to point to people being able to predict some personality features by looking at pictures of faces. What's going on here? Is "facial profiling" ever reasonable, ever fair?

Slate Magazine has a great article on the subject:

But today, physiognomy is making a comeback. In the last decade, breakthroughs in 3-D modeling and animation software have opened up the field. At the same time, ideas from genetics and evolutionary psychology are reanimating old debates about biological determinism, race and gender differences, and why humans possess the faces and bodies that we do.

The new research suggests we are more skilled at "reading faces" than we knew. People are surprisingly adept at assessing sexual orientation from headshots. Five-year-olds can predict election outcomes based on photos of the candidates. We can even guess whether a face belongs to a Democrat or a Republican at a rate better than chance, according to a forthcoming study out of Princeton.

And here it is again...

How many of these shots have we seen now from press conferences involving some sort of accusation or resignation. What exactly is this expression? How many shots do the photographers need to take and sort through before they nail it -- is it an ongoing expression, or fleeting? Is it spontaneous, or an expression assumed to attempt to mask another?

This shot of Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis announcing his resignation seems to be the classic illustration for these stories. I can only assume photo editors know what they want to convey when they pick it. Let's take it apart:

The first thing you may notice is the pulled down mouth corners and downcast eyes -- but does the rest of his face look sad? The inner corners of his eyes are drawn in and down, they aren't lifting in and up like in a typical sad expression. His lips are drawn completely inside his mouth and pressed tightly together, and like the eyebrows, that's a strong indication of anger.

Could the intense clamping of the lips and the downward/no-eye contact gaze be an indication of an intense anger that must at all costs be restrained? A stony mask to wear during one of the more painful and infuriating experiences of your life? An attempt to appear serious and appropriately concerned when in fact extremely aggravated? What do you see?

The Eyes Have It

Have you ever noticed that human eyes are rather significantly different than the eyes of other mammals, including (or maybe even especially) those of other primates? A new study from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Antropology in Germany has hypothesized that our white sclera and high-contrast irises have helped others understand where our gaze is directed, which in turn improved our social communication and cooperation abilities.

Why Eyes are So Alluring

Can you think of times when you've reacted to just a minor movement of someone's gaze?

The classic is the party scene where, even without the person moving their head, you notice their gaze leave your face and move over your shoulder to someone beyond. This is a subtle, but strong social cue that the conversation is drawing to a close and, unless you want to seem uncouth, you need to move aside in such a way to allow your conversational partner to leave.

Share other gaze-related body language cues in the comments!