Reading people's face: Paul Ekman and Microexpressions

           When I tell people that I study Psychology in college, people often asks me if I am capable of reading their minds. Those times, I often feel frustrated, since Psychology mostly is not about 'reading' people's mind, but is about figuring out how mind, brain and behavior are related to each other. On the other hand, I think such questions reflect people's huge, general interest towards figuring out other people's hidden messages.
           The fact that TV shows like 'Mentalist' and 'Lie to me' are nowadays enjoying a huge popularity also proves people's interest in knowing other people's thoughts to cope properly in relationships. In the shows, there come out main characters who can read people's mind. They do so by watching people's facial expressions and body languages. Especially in the show 'Lie to me,' there comes out a psychologist who is an expert in reading people's mind by examining their facial expressions. In fact, it is well known that he was modelled after the famous psychologist Paul Ekman.

            Paul Ekman is one of the most famous researcher in the field of emotions and facial expressions. He is also famous for conducting a research in Papua New Guinea. When he was visiting Papua New Guinea, the country was of a complete primitive state. He was the first outsider to take a step on the land. In the country, he conducted his interesting experiment. He wanted to prove that expressions on human faces do not mirror social convention but are universal displays of human emotion. Surprisingly, when he asked the natives to make facial expressions that corresponds with each sentences like 'Death', 'Happiness', and etc, they would make the same kinds of facial expressions that people in civilized society would make.         



Facial Expressions of native Papua New Guineans



             He then started to think that if the facial expression is such a universal, inborn one, he would be able to know exactly the kind of an emotion a person has, by examining his/her facial expressions. He also thought that although people may be(and usually are) capable of faking their facial expressions, they would not be able to control facial expressions that occurs on a sub-conscious level. The finding that such sub-conscious level's facial expressions always take place, before people even decide to control their facial expressions, assured him even more that by examining people's facial expressions, he would be able to figure out their true emotions. He categorized people's emotions into 'Happiness', 'Anger'. 'Disgust', 'Contempt', 'Sadness'. 'Surprise', 'Fear.' He then analyed certain characteristics of those facial expressions:

Click to see in full size

            On one hand, however, since such sub-conscious level expressions(Later named 'Microexpression') only lasts for less than one third of a second, sufficient training is needed to be able to to read such microexpressions on people's face. In his web-site 'www.paulekman.com' you can find an online training kit that is designed for self training. The only thing is, the training kit costs $69!(However, there also exists a simpler version with cheaper price.) If you get a score that meets a certain requirement, you can also get a certificate from Paul Ekman.
            I wouldn't deny that before I even started the training, I was rather concerned with what would happen if I really become able to read other people's mind through their faces. Wouldn't that be a true pain in the ass, since I'm not even a FBI agent! Fortunately(?) however, the tool kit took only an hour to complete, and I could only be trained to a level on which I know the traits of each facial expressions, but I cannot quite catch them in evereyday situations. I'd have to watch more video resources and read more books on the issue to get some deeper understanding of it.

For further information, you could read 'Unmasking the Face(By Paul Ekman)'. You can also try the demo version of the training kit here-> http://face.paulekman.com/default.aspx (botton right corner)

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An Interesting Article from in-mind.org

Link to the original article: http://beta.in-mind.org/node/380 

           The in-mind.org is a site in which you can read many interesting articles regarding important current issues and discoveries in Social Psychology. The web-site also provides a convinient service which shows readers the important headlines from many different Psychology magazines at one place. In-mind.org also provides readers with helpful video resources.

           An interesting article I read here today, was about a research conclusion that health promoting campaigns should also be adjusted according to each cultural contexts by which people are influenced. The writer divides the culture into two different categories: Individualistic culture and collectivistic culture. The writer claims that in individualistic cultures, like that of North America, United Kingdom, and etc, people become motivated to take care of their health when they are told about "positive" effects that certain acts will bring to them. For example, Americans would be more motivated to floss their teeth when they are told it will make their teeth healthy and therefore make their life happier. Whereas in collectivistic cultures, such as in Korea, people would be more motivated to floss their teeth, when they are warned with negative results that not-flossing their teeth will bring to them. There is a thread of connection between the result of the research and the overall attitude differences between people from individualistic and collectivistic culture. In individualistic society, an individual's major goal in life is to pursue the utmost happiness(unless it doesn't hurt other people). Thus, people pay their biggest attention on maximize their own happiness. On the other hand, people from collectivistic culture concentrates more on avoiding 'negative' incidents from happening in thier lives. It could be inferred that this is because, in collectivistic society, people regard it to be one of the biggest shame to be blamed publicly for their misakes or faults. Moreover, since they believe a person's mistake could also bring detrimental effects on overall society, people are both consciously and unconsciously more aware of negative consequences of their behavior, which may affect their social relationships.
            In addition, since people from collectivistic culture put much emphasis on their social relationship, they hesitate on revealing their problems to others(including psychiatrists, which explains why counseling institutions are not active in Asian countries) They, on the other hand tries to solve their own problems by themselves, often through social interaction, while not revealing their problems to their companions. However, people from individualistic cultures act the opposite. Another research furthermore suggests that 'subjective well-beingness' of  people from collectivist society tends to increase when they perceive 'not necessarily asked for' emotional supports from others. In contrast, there only existed weak relationships between the two variables, for those people from individualistic culture. I believe this explains why such unique and untranslatable word like 'Jung(情)' exists in Korean. 'Jung' is a word that stands for warm hearted feeling that ties people and neighbors together, which you do not necessarily have to express in words to show it. Although I haven't done a thorough research yet, I assume that such connection between people, and the words to express it also exists in other collectivistic cultures.

Social Neuroscience

           While learning about human brain and its relationship with things that I previously had never thought have link with, I realized how knowledge about human brain is important even in the research of social psychology. Before, I simply thought that researching human brain is only for cognitive psychologists. Now that I am aware brain is not a fixed product, but rather an always-transforming one that is affected continuously by the environment, social context(culture), and social influence, I became hugely interested in the effect social relationships and contexts have on formation of brain structure/activity. I wondered if there is also a specific branch of subject that concentrates on how brain mediates in social influences, or how social influences mediates brain activity, vice versa. Through some googling, I could find out that the field exists, and it is called Social Neuroscience. The field of Psychology emerged since 1992, by John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson. The representative research laboratory for Social neuroscience resides in University of Chicago. Former Psychology professor from Yonsei University, Hoon-gu, Lee introduces the concept more in depth.(Follow the link)   http://blog.naver.com/nanmokko?Redirect=Log&logNo=20013578485

I'd enjoy to learn what kind of brain activities take place when people realizes they committed a morally wrong behavior, in relations with cognitive dissonance. For example, research on the brain activity that took place during those people, who falsely accused TABLO of faking his academic records, saw TABLO's academic records and identity being clearly proven by Stanford univ.

How tightly are one's personality and talent related to brain? (Review on BBC documentary 'The Brain Story' ep.1)

           Do you believe that one's personality could change overnight? How about the seemingly inborn talents? For example, could a person suddenly become an artist? Here, Dick Lingham is the main character of the seemingly impossible story. Since seven years ago, he started to suffer from a degenerative disorder. The disorder had been responsible for gradually destroying the frontal lobe of his brain (the brain part is in charge of intellectual activities). Before, Dick Lingham was a very amicable and warm-hearted person. Nevertheless, as he started to suffer from the disease, his personality started to change completely. He now became a person who is hot-tempered, socially awkward, and contentious. What more astonished neuropsychologists was that he suddenly started to draw like a professional artist. Before the attack of the disease, he was never interested in drawings of any form. However, as the disorder proceeded, he started to feel a strong urge in drawing. More surprisingly, only after few hours of drawing, does he realizes what he had been drawing. It made me wonder if some of the historically famous musicians and artists who are told to have been absolutely absorbed in the creating the art piece, were in fact suffering from the disorder.

Drawings by Dick Lingham

         

          The story of Dick Lingham reminds people of Savant Syndrome. Savant syndrome is now widely known among people. Usually people with Autism experience Savant syndrome and they show exceptional abilities in certain fields. For example, they would play the piano or draw pictures to a near professional level, even though they have never received any formal education in Music and Art. Or they may show remarkable abilities in calculating days in the calendar. I carefully speculate that this happens since specific brain parts are in charge of developing certain abilities, and since those people with brain disorders have certain parts of their brain degenerated, other brain parts that lies near the degenerated part starts to develop rather excessively instead. I also became curious about whether the brain parts in charge of social ability are located near to parts that control abstract, three-dimensional brain activities (such as music, art, calculation of numbers, and etc.), since many people suffering from Autism developes abilities in such fields, rather than in other fields. Would it also explain why there are so many socially awkward people among scientists? Or is this just a silly prejudice of mine that I started to develop since watching the Big Bang Theory? lol

Even the most spiritual experiences can now be scientifically explained (Review on BBC documentary: The Brain Story ep.1)

          Until recently, people believed that spiritual or religious experiences cannot be explained through Science. However, what would you say if the mystery about why and how people go through spiritual experiences are solved by contemporary neuroscientists?
           Symptoms of people who are afflicted with temporal lobe epilepsy, has played a key role in proving even the most spiritual experiences could be deriving from brain activities. Reen Carter is a patient with temporal epilepsy. Ever since she was young, she was different from others. To her eyes, colors and even the gradations of colors were very vividly shown. She even recollects that when she was young, she used to go to the library, not to read books but to ride an elevator. She was mesmerized in the colors and lights the arrows of the elevator door's buttons reflected. She also claims that she often sees the sign of God, and as a result she is a very religious person. Do not think she is a crazy person. It had been found out that temporal epilepsy causes patients to see the world with extreme focus on colors, shapes and silhouette. Most of all, many patients have been reported to experience spiritual experiences, just like that of Reen Carter's. For instance, they would see the silhouette of God, have contact with the superior being. At this point, I wondered if people hearing God's voice, seeing his vision, can generally be explained as an abnormal activity of  their temporal lobe. Moreover, I feel curious regarding whether Psychics, those people who claims to be capable of seeing ghosts and talking to them, show somewhat different temporal lobe activities.
           The famous artist of all time, Vincent van Gogh(1853~1890) is also known to have suffered from the epilepsy. Dr. Shahram Khoshbin from Harvard medical school has been researching on the effect that (temporal) epilepsy would have had on Vincent's artistic performance and his life. In fact, Vincent Van Gogh is famous for creating most of his artistic works only during ten-years of time before his death(suicide). Moreover, the period during which his vigorous artistic activity surged up exactly coincides with the period he started to suffer from epilepsy. Dr. Khoshbin suggests that the epilepsy would have affected Vincent with symptoms similar to that of Reed Carter's. Since the attack of first epilepsy, Vincent started to have remarkable creativities and sensitivities in seeing the world, and expressing them on the canvas. Another record that Vincent had studied to become a pastor, although he could not make it, since he was too religious(!)(He used to say he is the holy God, so he got expelled orfrom the church.), even more strongly supports that epilepsy or abnomal activities in temporal lobe can make a person go through spiritual experiences and to gain great artistic creativity and sensibility.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

            Does it mean that if we stimualte temporal lobe of the brain, we can go through such spiritual experiences? In fact, Yes! Dr. Michael Persinger from Laurentian University have been conducting a very interesting experiment on the issue. In the experiment, he stimulates the temporal lobe of random applicants and observes what they experience. Surprisingly, when he stimulated the temporal lobe, the subjects commonly experienced illusions like 'Big hell', 'Going through a tunnel', 'Bright light', 'Out-of-body experience.' This experiment proved that even the most spiritual experiences, which were previously thought as scientifically unexplainable, could clearly be explained through scientific researches, such as they are also caused by brain! From this, I could infer that near-death experience could also one form of temporal lobe activity. When our body falls into a critical condition, temporal lobe of our brain must be activated in a rather anomalous way, since people who went through near-death experience commonly insists that they experienced going through a tunnel, meeting dead people(hallucination), or experienceing Out-of-body experience.  In the future, even the most abstract concepts would be able to be explained by the physical activities of brain.To add some comments, I wonder if Huh Kyung Young is suffering from some sort of temporal lobe disorder. Seeing Huh Kyung Young advertising himself to be godly figure, capable of going through out-of-body experience whenever he wants, and meeting people before they die, definitely makes me become suspicious!
             In the future, there would definitely come a time when even the most abstract and paranomal mental experiences people go through, become explained as a physical activities of brain.

"Mind is what brain does": The History of Mind/Brain Problem

           Scholars who lived during ancient civilization conceived of mind as that deriving from 'Heart.' Therefore, when ancient Greek mummified human body, they would get all the intestines out to put them in canopic jars, while mummifying the heart with the body and simply throwing out the brain. They thought of heart as playing the most important role in human mind, soul and thought process. The great Aristotles(BC 384~BC 322) basically agreed to the concept, although he claimed that brain acts as a 'cooler' for one's passionate heart. Galen(130-200 AD), on the other hand, suggests a progressed version of Aristotles's theory. He asserted that one's spirit is emitted from heart, but the brain makes the spirit noble. As the time went by, Leonardo Da Vinci(1452~1519) came up the table and claimed the 'ventricals(a cavity within the human brain)' to be the place where spirit is conserved. It can be assumed that Da Vinci was one of the first person in the history to think of brain as an organ in which the complex spiritual activities takes place, although he was a little sloppy. Until this time people thought that mind and body are completely separate things. No one investigated the link between the brain and mind.
           It was only when Rene Descartes(1596~1650) appeared when people started to question about the link between brain and mind. He presented people with his famous statement "The mind and the body are separate yet intertwined.(Dualism)" Although his theory still lacked in sophistication, his theory was enough to inspire other scientists. A few decades later, Franz Gall, a german neuroanatomist (1758~1828) suggested a pioneering, yet rather less scientic theory. He was a pioneer in an aspect that he thought of  brain as the 'organ' of mind. He then later on invented a new study called 'Phrenology,' which tried to figure out which part of the brain stimulates what specific feeling. What made his fame fade away a little was that he also suggested that by examining the bumps of one's brain, people can easily find out the characteristics and the mental abilities of a person. Of course, this theory has now become a history.
         With the hint from Franz Gall that brain is localized in its functions, Karl Lashley(1890~1959) suggested that cortex seems to be responsible for 'learning'. Paul Broca(1824~1880) also did his job. He had a patient whose name was Monsieur Leborgne. The thing is, the patient suffered from only being able to say "tan," but no other words. Yet, he could understand all that's being said by others. After the death of the patient, Paul Broca did an autopsy on the patient and found out that the patient had a lesion in the left frontal region(later on named as 'Broca's area'). He could then figure out that the left frontal region is a crucial part for creation of a language. After then, other scientists started to conduct lesion experiment to know the function of each brain part.
          Thesedays, thanks to the day-to-day improving science technology, neuroscientists have become able to 'see' with the machine like EEG, MRI, PET, fMRI, and etc, what parts of brain are activated when a person is conducting a specific behavior, cognition, or processing specific thoughts. With the help of such technologies, neuroscientists are being capable of investigating more and more about the relationship between mind and brain. The conclusion they have come to now is that the mind and brain are much more related than people previously thought, and that mind and emotion themselves could even merely be a combination of activities of the brain. Also that several parts of the brain act together when creating specific behaviors or the thought processes, which mean that the brain is much more complicated an organ than we thought. In a nutshell, the contemporary science is suggesting that "The Mind is what Brain does."

Picture Reference:

Franz Gall's brain model: All functions of the brain are localized

 An excerpt that will blow your mind!
"Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter, and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what are unsavory. ... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us. ... All these things we endure from the brain."
                -On the Sacred Disease published in the 5th century B.C by Hippocrates, the father of Medicine.

Gosh, there's always a genius who is way ahead of their time.

Next: How are mind and brain related? (As a form of a review on BBC documentary 'Brain Story')

My interest in Psychology

Among many different Psychology fields, my main interest lies in Social Psychology.

Currently, my interests are: Social context and decision making(Social influence), Attitudes and social cognition, Cultural Psychology, Interpersonal relations, Cognitive dissonance, Identity over time, Social issues&public policy(applied social psychology) 

Mainly, I am interested in figuring out the influence that social context, cultural differences and individual personality differences have on individual's behavior. Also, finding ways to solve social issues by applying the knowledges! Hope there are friends to share my interests with! 

Objective of opening this blog

I always wanted to create a blog that can tell people about Psychology, the charm that it has.
I will be a)writing reviews on movies in the light of Psychology, and b)introduce some of the fine documentaries and books that are helpful for those who always want to know more about Psychology.
Some of the c)interesting recent findings on Psychology will also be posted regularly. d)Information about psychology education, career, and etc will also be posted.
Most of all, the place will be a place where I can be connected with those people who also have a great passion in Psychology.