From flawed self-assessment to blatant
whoppers: the utility of voluntary and
involuntary behaviour in detecting
deception, Ekman
Preface
The search for truth is a difficult one, since reality reflects the biological, social and psychological
factors of each person's life and may not always be reflected in external, tangible reality. Moreover,
mere repetition of a story may blur the teller's belief in its veracity.
One way in which to differentiate types of lies and deception is in terms of the intent of the liar.
The lightest types of lies: denial, repression and dissociation. These distortions of reality are among
the least intentional. Then we have self-deceptions, positive illusions, self-aggrandizements and non-
conscious cognitions --> activities that seem to characterize the thought process of most people and
are usually more readily accessible to consciousness than the more pathologically motivated denials
and dissociations. These possibly helpful distortions seem to be more related to the positive attitude
one holds about oneself rather than an attempt to deceive others. Further along the continuum
there are the white lies, intended to mislead another. At the furthest end there are the deliberate,
high stakes lies
Assessment of lying and malingering in the clinical realm has largely depended on analysis of people's
statements, in interviews and inventories. Measures of social desirability are widely used to correct
for the self-aggrandizement common in most self-report inventories.
Laboratory researchers have also reported differences in the verbal statements of liars and truth
tellers. Others have demonstrated differences in the kinds of language used by those who are
misremembering, those who are totally fabricating and those who are merely confused in their
collections.
----> Goal this study: focussing on the nonverbal aspects of demeanour. Two aspects:
1. The fine-grained analysis of behavioural clues to deceit
2. The individual differences in the ability to detect deception
-Lie = the deliberate intention to mislead without prior notification of the target of the lie.
Study
The work focused on the face and is based on Darwin's thinking about biological based, and
consequent universality of human facial expressions of emotion.
-Darwin: gathered evidence that some emotions have universal facial expression and proposed
principles explaining why particular expressions occur for particular emotions.
He did not consider how and why emotional expressions are reliable or misleading.
He suggested that muscles that are difficult to activate voluntarily might escape efforts to
inhibit or mask expression, revealing true feelings.
o If you cannot make an action voluntarily, then you will not be able to prevent its
action when involuntary processes such as emotion instigate it.
o The motor cortex is the source of the impulses resulting from voluntary efforts to
make a facial expression. Other areas of the brain send impulses to the facial nucleus
when emotions are aroused involuntarily.
To determine whether Darwin's hypothesis was correct, one must first identify which facial actions
are difficult to make deliberately. Then these movements should provide leakage of felt emotions:
occurs when parts of an expression occur of occur very rapidly, betraying how the person feels even
when the person is trying to conceal their feelings.
whoppers: the utility of voluntary and
involuntary behaviour in detecting
deception, Ekman
Preface
The search for truth is a difficult one, since reality reflects the biological, social and psychological
factors of each person's life and may not always be reflected in external, tangible reality. Moreover,
mere repetition of a story may blur the teller's belief in its veracity.
One way in which to differentiate types of lies and deception is in terms of the intent of the liar.
The lightest types of lies: denial, repression and dissociation. These distortions of reality are among
the least intentional. Then we have self-deceptions, positive illusions, self-aggrandizements and non-
conscious cognitions --> activities that seem to characterize the thought process of most people and
are usually more readily accessible to consciousness than the more pathologically motivated denials
and dissociations. These possibly helpful distortions seem to be more related to the positive attitude
one holds about oneself rather than an attempt to deceive others. Further along the continuum
there are the white lies, intended to mislead another. At the furthest end there are the deliberate,
high stakes lies
Assessment of lying and malingering in the clinical realm has largely depended on analysis of people's
statements, in interviews and inventories. Measures of social desirability are widely used to correct
for the self-aggrandizement common in most self-report inventories.
Laboratory researchers have also reported differences in the verbal statements of liars and truth
tellers. Others have demonstrated differences in the kinds of language used by those who are
misremembering, those who are totally fabricating and those who are merely confused in their
collections.
----> Goal this study: focussing on the nonverbal aspects of demeanour. Two aspects:
1. The fine-grained analysis of behavioural clues to deceit
2. The individual differences in the ability to detect deception
-Lie = the deliberate intention to mislead without prior notification of the target of the lie.
Study
The work focused on the face and is based on Darwin's thinking about biological based, and
consequent universality of human facial expressions of emotion.
-Darwin: gathered evidence that some emotions have universal facial expression and proposed
principles explaining why particular expressions occur for particular emotions.
He did not consider how and why emotional expressions are reliable or misleading.
He suggested that muscles that are difficult to activate voluntarily might escape efforts to
inhibit or mask expression, revealing true feelings.
o If you cannot make an action voluntarily, then you will not be able to prevent its
action when involuntary processes such as emotion instigate it.
o The motor cortex is the source of the impulses resulting from voluntary efforts to
make a facial expression. Other areas of the brain send impulses to the facial nucleus
when emotions are aroused involuntarily.
To determine whether Darwin's hypothesis was correct, one must first identify which facial actions
are difficult to make deliberately. Then these movements should provide leakage of felt emotions:
occurs when parts of an expression occur of occur very rapidly, betraying how the person feels even
when the person is trying to conceal their feelings.
