The face and its expressions are the window to the soul… if you know how to read them. Luckily, reading facial expressions is a learnable skill, and the science behind it is solid!
The late Dr. Paul Ekman, who passed away in November 2025 at age 91, spent more than six decades studying the universality of certain facial expressions across cultures.1 His research forms the backbone of everything you’ll learn here.
Vanessa Van Edwards, behavioral researcher and bestselling author of Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication, has spent over a decade building on Ekman’s foundational research, and has trained teams at Google, Microsoft, and Intel in facial expression recognition.
Where This Helps You
Jump straight to the part you need:
- What to say when you catch a microexpression
- Reading faces when you name your price
- What a flash of fear means in an interview
- Reading a grid of video tiles
- What your own face says in a meeting
What Is a Microexpression?
A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression that flashes across a person’s face when they experience an emotion. They last half a second or less, sometimes as little as 1/25 of a second, and they’re hard to suppress.2 Because they happen so quickly, they’re hard to catch without training.
Blink and you might miss one!
Microexpressions last half a second or less, and they reveal emotions people are trying to hide.
Micro vs. Macro vs. Subtle Expressions
Not every facial expression is a microexpression! Understanding the differences helps you know what to look for:
| Expression Type | Duration | Nature | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microexpression | Half a second or less | Involuntary; emotional leakage | A flash of anger during a polite smile |
| Macroexpression | 0.5 to 4.0 seconds | Often voluntary; social signaling | A wide smile when greeting a friend |
| Subtle expression | Variable | Low-intensity; just beginning to form | A slight downturn of the lips when hearing bad news |
Microexpressions are the ones that reveal concealed emotions. Macroexpressions are the everyday facial movements we all recognize.
And subtle expressions? They’re faint… they happen when an emotion is just starting or when someone is only mildly affected.
How to Read Microexpressions
Watch my video for in-depth information, as well as how to detect each microexpression!
Ready to move on? Here is my guide to understanding the microexpression.
They can occur as fast as 1/25 of a second. And once you know them, you see them EVERYWHERE!
We just have to know what to look for.
The face is the best indicator of a person’s emotions… yet it often goes overlooked.
Dr. Paul Ekman, whose research inspired the show Lie to Me, did groundbreaking research on decoding the human face. His studies tested whether facial expressions are universal across cultures.
Athletes who were blind from birth made the same facial expressions as sighted athletes after winning or losing a medal match… and they had never seen another person’s face!3
Ekman designated seven facial expressions that are the most widely used and easy to interpret. Learning to read them is incredibly helpful for understanding the people in your life!
If you want to practice reading people’s faces, it helps to know the following basic expressions. I would recommend trying them in the mirror so you can see what they look like on yourself.
Watch our video below to learn how to read people and decode the 7 body language cues:
The 7 Universal Microexpressions
1. Surprise Microexpression
How to spot it:
- The eyebrows are raised and curved
- Skin below the brow is stretched
- Horizontal wrinkles show across the forehead
- Eyelids are opened wide, white of the eye showing above and below
- Jaw drops open and teeth are parted, but there is no tension or stretching of the mouth
Why do we look surprised? When we raise our eyebrows, we open our eyes WIDER. This lets other observers see where we are looking much more easily, so they can see exactly what we are surprised about. Pretty clever.
Surprise can also be helpful in the world of dating and attraction, when someone is attracted to you, you might notice them giving a brief eyebrow raise called the eyebrow flash.
What Is an Eyebrow Flash?
An eyebrow flash is a quick raising and lowering of the eyebrows that usually lasts only a fraction of a second. It is commonly used between people who know each other to indicate familiarity… or as a sign of attraction and interest!
Ethologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt documented the eyebrow flash as a human greeting, a nonverbal way of saying “I see you” or “I’m friendly.” When his team filmed everyday interactions in three very different cultures, the brow raise moved the same way in all three, usually came with a smile, and marked a “yes” to social contact.4
Babies are tuned early to signals aimed right at them. In a 2008 study published in Current Biology, researchers Senju and Csibra tested how six-month-olds respond to them5
- Six-month-old infants were tested to see if they would follow the gaze of an adult toward an object
- When the adult looked at the object without signaling to the baby first, the infant did not follow the gaze
- However, when the adult first made eye contact or spoke in baby talk, infants followed the adult’s gaze
Even babies understand that a signal aimed right at them means something worth looking at is coming.
Action Step: Practice using a deliberate eyebrow flash when greeting someone you know. A quick raise-and-lower of the eyebrows signals warmth and recognition instantly, no words needed!
2. Fear Microexpression
How to spot it:
- Eyebrows are raised and drawn together, usually in a flat line
- Wrinkles in the forehead are in the center between the eyebrows rather than across the full forehead
- Upper eyelid is raised, but the lower lid is tense and drawn up
- Eyes have the upper white showing prominently, but the lower white is often obscured by the tensed lower lid
- Mouth is open and lips are slightly tensed or stretched and drawn back
Key distinction from surprise: In surprise, the lower eyelids are relaxed and you see whites both above and below the iris. In fear, the lower lids are tensed and drawn UPWARD. This is the fastest way to tell the two apart!
The fear microexpression is closely linked to shock, so there are similarities. But it also has its own purpose… when we are scared and widen our eyes, our field of view increases.
This lets us see any threats that might lurk nearby.
Why does the mouth fall open? Our mouth opens when we are scared because it helps us prepare for two things. First, it readies us in case we need to shout for help. Second, it prepares us to breathe in a large amount of oxygen—helpful in case we need to run or fight.
And if you have ever seen someone frightened, you might have been frightened too. That’s completely normal! Mirroring other people’s fear is a natural response.
Research shows that when we see fearful facial expressions, the activity in our amygdala, the part of our brain responsible for processing threats, increases significantly.6
The brain detects fear in others before we’re consciously aware of it. A little spooky, right?
So when one person displays a fear microexpression, others around them will also open their eyes wider. This allows people nearby to be better prepared to seek out signs of danger.
Bonus: Do you ever wonder why we cover our mouths when we are shocked or frightened? This is a way of hiding our emotions. It’s a useful gesture if we are scared by nothing too serious, for example, if we are stumbling around in the dark and bump into someone, only to realize that someone is our friend or family member.
3. Disgust Microexpression
How to spot it:
- Eyes are narrowed
- Upper lip is raised
- Upper teeth may be exposed
- Nose is wrinkled
- Cheeks are raised
Disgust is the expression you make when you smell something bad or hear something nasty (hello, office fridge on a Friday). When we squint our eyes in disgust, our visual acuity increases, helping us find the origin of our disgust.
Trying to hide disgust has a cost, too. In one classic study7
- Participants watched a short film designed to disgust them
- Some were told to act so that anyone watching wouldn’t know they were feeling anything
Can you guess what happened? Their faces went quiet… but they felt just as disgusted as everyone else! And their bodies got more worked up, with more blinking and signs of a revved-up nervous system.
4. Anger Microexpression
How to spot it:
- The eyebrows are lowered and drawn together
- Vertical lines appear between the eyebrows
- Lower lip is tensed
- Eyes are in a hard stare or bulging
- Lips can be pressed firmly together, with corners down, or in a square shape as if shouting
- Nostrils may be dilated
- The lower jaw juts out
(All three facial areas must be engaged to avoid ambiguity.)
Unlike the surprise and fear microexpressions, the angry microexpression is characterized by lowered eyebrows. Lowered brows change how even a neutral face comes across. In a 2019 study in Psychological Science8
- 101 participants judged the dominance of various avatar pictures
- The avatars showed a neutral facial expression but were either tilted upward, downward, or remained neutral
The results showed that those with a downward head position were perceived as more dominant. That’s because when the head is lowered, eyebrows appear more V-shaped and prominent, even though the face itself hasn’t changed.
People who are genuinely angry might try to hide their angry facial expression in social situations. After all, anger is a stronger social norm violation than sadness or other negative emotions. So people might reveal only a small tell… like a quick scrunching of the eyebrows.
However, University of Essex researchers found that angry faces are one of the fastest expressions to be detected. This makes evolutionary sense. We need to quickly tell if someone suddenly becomes angry to avoid possible physical harm.
Besides anger, did you know there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different body language cues? We put together a comprehensive, science-backed body language guide to learn them all!
5. Happiness Microexpression
How to spot it:
- Corners of the lips are drawn back and up
- Mouth may or may not be parted, teeth exposed
- A wrinkle runs from outer nose to outer lip
- Cheeks are raised
- Lower eyelid may show wrinkles or be tense
- Crow’s feet near the outside of the eyes
The expressions on the top are fake happiness, where the side eye muscles are not engaged. The ones on the bottom are real happiness. See the difference?
People try to fake their happiness ALL the time.
But spotting the difference between real and fake smiles is possible when you know what to look for!
What Is a Duchenne Smile?
The Duchenne smile, named after French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, is a smile that engages not just the mouth but also the orbicularis oculi muscle around the eyes, creating crow’s feet wrinkles. For over a century, scientists believed this eye engagement was impossible to fake.
So… can you fake it?
Here’s where the science gets interesting: a 2013 study by Sarah Gunnery at Northeastern University found that about 71% of people can deliberately produce the eye crinkle when asked to copy a photograph of a Duchenne smile.9 But when people role-played faking happiness over a gift they didn’t really like, only about 24% of their smiles included it.
So what actually distinguishes a real smile from a fake one? Watch the timing. Posed smiles switch on and off faster than spontaneous ones, and they pull the lip corners further10
- Genuine smiles build up more gradually and fade more gently
- Fake smiles tend to “snap” on and off too quickly
Does the crinkle still matter? You bet. We are still pre-wired to respond to the Duchenne marker. Researchers at Western University found that people rate smiles accompanied by the eye crinkle as more sincere and more intense.11
Pro Tip Instead of looking only for crow’s feet, watch how a smile moves. A real smile flows like a wave. It builds, crests, and fades. A fake smile appears suddenly and disappears just as fast.
6. Sadness Microexpression
How to spot it:
- Inner corners of the eyebrows are drawn in and then up
- Skin below the eyebrows is triangulated, with inner corner up
- Corners of the lips are drawn down
- Jaw comes up
- Lower lip pouts out
This is the hardest microexpression to fake. It’s also one of the hardest microexpressions to correctly identify.
The reason? Sad microexpressions are not very large or noticeable. There’s no large tell like a smile when a person is sad.
Sadness, unlike surprise, is also one of the longer-lasting microexpressions.
People can even develop a resting sad face (similar to resting bothered face). Sadness can also be used as a facial expression to calm down those who are angry.
Why sadness is so hard to spot: Most emotional leakage is partial rather than a full-face microexpression. Research by Porter and ten Brinke found that microexpressions showed up in only the upper or lower face—not both at once.12 With sadness, the key tell is often limited to a brief triangulation of the inner eyebrows, a movement that’s easy to miss.
Action Step: To practice spotting sadness, focus exclusively on the inner eyebrows during your next few conversations. That small upward pull of the inner brow corners is the most reliable sadness indicator, and training yourself to notice it takes deliberate attention.
7. Contempt Microexpression
How to spot it:
- One side of the mouth is raised
What is contempt? Contempt, similar to hate, is a negative feeling of dislike, disrespect, or offensiveness towards someone. It’s the only one of the 7 universal microexpressions that is asymmetrical.
Unlike the disgust microexpression, contempt is characterized by a feeling of superiority over another. When a person feels contempt, they may feel like they are RIGHT and the other person is wrong.
If you see the contempt microexpression, pay CLOSE attention.
Why? The Gottman Institute calls contempt the worst of the “four horsemen” of relationship conflict, and the number one predictor of divorce.13
Stable, happy couples keep a 5:1 ratio: at least five positive interactions for every negative one during conflict.14
Contempt is the only asymmetrical microexpression, and the Gottman Institute calls it the number one predictor of divorce.
Action Step: The next time you feel contempt rising during a disagreement, pause and replace it with a specific appreciation. Instead of an eye roll, try: “I disagree with you on this, but I respect that you care about it.” Happy couples have negative moments too. They just repair them quickly.
How to Spot Microexpressions in Real Life
Knowing the 7 expressions is step one… Actually catching them in conversation is a different skill entirely! Use these six techniques to sharpen your ability to read faces in real time:
Technique 1: The Baseline Method
Before trying to read someone’s microexpressions, watch how their face looks when they’re relaxed and talking about neutral topics.
What’s their resting expression? Do they naturally furrow their brows? Do they smile asymmetrically?
Microexpressions are meaningful only as deviations from someone’s normal. Without a baseline, you risk misreading natural facial tendencies as emotional leakage.
How to do it: Spend the first 2–3 minutes of any conversation asking easy, low-stakes questions (“How was your weekend?” or “Have you tried that new restaurant?”). Watch their face during these answers, because that’s your baseline.
Technique 2: The Upper Face Focus
Leaked emotion tends to appear in just one half of the face, upper or lower.12 The mouth is the half most of us practice controlling (we’ve been smiling on command for photos since childhood), so give the eyebrows and the area around the eyes extra attention.
What to watch for: Brief eyebrow movements (a quick furrow of anger, a flash of raised brows from surprise), tension around the eyes, or a momentary squint of disgust.
Technique 3: The Mismatch Detector
The most revealing moments happen when someone’s words say one thing but their face briefly flashes something different. A colleague who says “I’m fine with that decision” while their lip corner briefly pulls up on one side (contempt) is telling you something their words aren’t!
Action Step: In your next meeting, focus on one person and watch for moments when their facial expression doesn’t match their verbal response. You don’t need to call it out… just notice it.
Technique 4: The Video Replay Method
Pause interviews, press conferences, or conversation clips and study the faces frame by frame. This builds pattern recognition without the social pressure of a live interaction (no one can see you squinting at the screen!). YouTube interviews with politicians and public figures are excellent practice material because these people are often managing their expressions carefully.
Tim Roth’s portrayal of Dr. Cal Lightman in Lie to Me actually demonstrates this technique in action. His character constantly pauses and replays footage to catch fleeting expressions.
While the show dramatized the accuracy, the practice method itself is sound.
Here’s what one 10-minute session might look like. Pick an interview clip, watch it once at normal speed, then scrub back through the answers to the toughest questions and fill in a log:
| Timestamp | Question asked | What flashed | Where on the face | Did it match the words? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:42 | “Were you surprised by the results?” | Brows up, eyes wide | Upper face | Yes. They said they were shocked. |
| 4:05 | “What do you think of your rival’s plan?” | One lip corner pulled up | Lower face | No. They said, “I respect it.” |
| 7:30 | “What’s been the hardest part?” | Inner brows pulled up | Upper face | Yes. They described a loss. |
Three rows is plenty for a first session. (The first time I tried this, I paused one clip so many times my laptop fan started complaining!)
Technique 5: The Single Emotion Sprint
Don’t try to learn all seven microexpressions simultaneously. Start with contempt (the one-sided smirk).
It’s the easiest to spot because it’s the only asymmetrical expression. Once you can reliably catch contempt, add surprise (the eyebrow flash), then work through the rest.
Spend one week per emotion. By week seven, you’ll have a working vocabulary of all seven expressions!
Technique 6: The Mirror Technique
Practice making each of the 7 expressions yourself. Stand in front of a mirror and hold each expression for 5 seconds, studying the muscle movements.
Then try flashing them quickly… well under a second. This builds muscle memory that helps you recognize the patterns when you see them on other people’s faces. (I tried contempt in the bathroom mirror once and honestly spooked myself a little.)
Most leaked emotion appears in just one half of the face, so don’t wait for the whole face to move.
What to Say When You Catch a Microexpression
So you spotted one… now what?
Naming the face is the one move we’d skip. “I just saw contempt flash across your face” turns a meeting into an interrogation, and one flash could mean a dozen things (maybe they just remembered a parking ticket). The better move is to go back to whatever was on the table when the expression appeared, and ask about THAT.
I once asked a teammate, “Was that an eye roll?” in front of the whole room… and that meeting never recovered!
- Note the trigger. What was said or shown in the second before the flash?
- Ask about the topic. Use an open question with a soft on-ramp.
- Wait. Give them a few full seconds to answer before you fill the silence.
Here’s what that looks like for each of the seven:
| If you spot… | It might mean… | Try saying… |
|---|---|---|
| Surprise | This is new information | “Is this the first you’re hearing about it?” |
| Fear | Worry about a risk or a consequence | “What part of this worries you most?” |
| Disgust | Something feels distasteful or wrong | “How do you feel about that approach?” |
| Anger | Something feels unfair | “Does this feel fair to you? What would you change?” |
| Happiness | Real enthusiasm | “You seem to like that idea. Which part?” |
| Sadness | Disappointment or a sense of loss | “That’s a lot of change. How are you feeling about it?” |
| Contempt | They think the idea is beneath them | “I get the sense you see this differently. What am I missing?” |
Let’s say you’re walking your team through a new deadline. As you say “Friday,” a teammate’s lip corner pulls up on one side, then disappears.
You finish your sentence, then turn to them: “Friday’s tight. What would you need to make it work?”
Maybe they say it’s fine. Maybe they tell you the vendor can’t deliver until Monday… which you’d MUCH rather hear today than on Thursday night.
And if your read was wrong?
The question still works. “What would you need to make it work?” is a good question whether or not anyone’s face moved.
Action Step: Pick one question from the table and keep it ready for your next meeting. The first time you notice a mismatch between someone’s face and their words, ask it.
Why Reading Faces Pays Off at Work
Want a reason to practice? People who are better at reading emotions in faces tend to earn more!
Employees who scored higher on emotion recognition had higher annual incomes, and the connection came through their political skill and how well they helped colleagues15.
Teams show the same pattern. Groups whose members were better at reading each other’s emotions when the team first formed got higher performance ratings nearly a year later16.
Not bad for a half-second flash!
So where on the job is a flash most useful?
At the Negotiating Table
The half second after you say your number is the moment to watch. If surprise flashes, they may have expected something very different, and a pause lets them speak first. If you catch a one-sided lip pull, you might ask: “What would make this feel fair to you?”
Our guide to negotiation strategies covers what to say after that.
Across the Interview Desk
If you’re the interviewer, the hardest questions (“Why did you leave your last role?”) are where faces move. A flash of fear is normal here!
Interviews are stressful, so watch out for the Othello Error, which means mistaking a truthful person’s nerves for guilt. Treat a flash of fear as a cue for a gentler follow-up, like “What did you learn from that move?”
Our interview body language guide covers the other signals to watch.
In a Grid of Video Tiles
Video calls shrink every face to the size of a postage stamp… When a decision is on the line, speaker view lets the face you care about fill the screen.
And if you ask for reactions one person at a time, you get a face to read AND an answer.
Our digital body language tips go further.
What Your Own Face Says in a Meeting
Everything in this guide works in reverse… the people in the room are reading YOUR face, too.
When you’re anxious, your brows can pull together and up, your lips press tight, and your face goes still while you wait for your turn to talk. The person across the table may read that stillness as boredom or doubt… even when you know the material cold.
A few small moves help your face look as engaged as you feel:
- Unclench before you speak. Let your jaw drop slightly and soften the space between your eyebrows.
- Show you’re following. When someone makes a point, give a small nod and a slight lift of the brows. It’s a smaller version of the eyebrow flash from the surprise section.
- Let a real smile build. When you like an idea, let the smile grow and fade on its own instead of switching one on. (Remember, posed smiles snap on and off faster.)
- Take one slow breath out before your turn. It buys you a beat to loosen up before the first word.
- Check your listening face. Before your next video call, open your camera and watch your face for a minute while someone talks. Does it look interested?
Try This: In your next meeting, pick one moment when a colleague shares an idea you like, and let your face say so. Then notice how they respond to you.
Can Microexpressions Detect Lies?
This is the question everyone asks after watching Lie to Me. Microexpressions reveal hidden emotions… but they are not a reliable lie detector on their own.
Microexpressions are rare in real life. A study by Porter and ten Brinke analyzed nearly 700 facial expressions frame-by-frame and found that microexpressions occurred in only about 2% of all expressions. Every one of them was partial, appearing in only the upper or lower face.12
They appear in honest people too. In high-stakes deception scenarios (like televised murder pleas), microexpressions occurred at nearly the same rate in both genuine and deceptive people.17
The Othello Error. A truthful person might flash a microexpression of fear simply because they’re stressed about being questioned—not because they’re lying. Ekman himself named this the “Othello Error,” after Shakespeare’s character who mistook his wife’s fear for guilt.
Training improves recognition but not lie detection. In one training study, department store employees raised their microexpression-reading accuracy from about 47% to about 65%.18 But a 2019 test of Ekman’s training tool, the Micro Expression Training Tool (METT), found that METT-trained people did not outperform untrained people at actually catching lies.19
As Ekman wrote in Telling Lies, lies often fail “because some sign of an emotion being concealed leaks.”
The best approach combines microexpression awareness with other signals: what someone is saying, how their body language shifts, and whether their words match their face. Think of microexpressions as one piece of a larger puzzle.
The Face of a Leader
Look at these faces of CEOs. Can you tell which ones have the most profitable companies? (Go on, pick three!)
In a study by Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady, researchers asked participants to rate these CEOs based on nothing but their photograph. Participants rated traits like competence and dominance from cropped, grayscale photos alone, the kind of snap judgment psychologists call “thin-slicing.” Their ratings of power-related traits lined up with how much profit each CEO’s company actually made.20 Wild, right?
Answers: J. David J. O’Reilly (Chevron), G. James Mulva (ConocoPhillips), C. H. Lee Scott Jr. (Walmart).
This study was about reading static faces, the traits we broadcast even in a still photograph. Faces in motion give away even MORE, in the fleeting microexpressions that leak the emotions we’re trying to hide.
I truly believe that knowing how to read faces is one of the most essential people skills everyone should know.
A Brief History of Microexpressions
The phenomenon was first identified by Ernest Haggard and Kenneth Isaacs in 1966. While reviewing films of psychotherapy sessions, they noticed fleeting facial expressions, too fast for the naked eye, that revealed hidden emotions the patients weren’t expressing verbally. They called them “micromomentary expressions.”21
Content note: the next story mentions suicide.
Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen expanded this work dramatically in the late 1960s. Their breakthrough came with the famous “Mary” case: a hospitalized woman who appeared cheerful and requested a weekend pass.
She seemed so improved that doctors were ready to grant it. But before leaving, she confessed she had planned to use the pass to end her life.
Ekman and Friesen reviewed the filmed interview frame-by-frame and discovered a flash of intense anguish lasting only two film frames, about 1/12 of a second—immediately masked by a broad smile.
This became the foundational evidence for microexpressions as involuntary “emotional leakage.”
From there, Ekman spent decades building the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) with Friesen, cataloging every possible facial muscle movement and mapping them to emotions. In one of his best-known studies, people in a remote, preliterate culture in Papua New Guinea matched the same faces to the same emotions as people in Western and Eastern literate cultures.22
Some faces are still easier to read than others. People recognize the basic emotions across cultures at better-than-chance rates, and they’re more accurate reading faces from their own cultural group23.
That edge shrinks for groups who spend more time around each other. So if your coworkers grew up somewhere very different from you, give yourself a little longer to learn their baseline (see Technique 1).
Let Your Face Tell the Truth About You
You don’t need a poker face. People react to your face whether they mean to or not, so let it match what you actually feel, interest included. And if you’re nervous, a slow breath and a real question will do more for you than a frozen smile.
Our guide to confidence has more ways to come across the way you mean to.
When you know microexpressions, you’ll be able to:
- Improve your relationships with your significant other, friends, and family members
- Discover the true feelings of your clients and partners, both in your professional and personal life
- Catch mismatches between what people say and what they feel during negotiations, interviews, and important conversations
- Notice hidden emotions and respond to them with empathy
Charles Darwin described it best:
Every true or inherited movement of expression seems to have had some natural and independent origin. But when once acquired, such movements may be voluntarily and consciously employed as a means of communication.
Spotting microexpressions is one people skill of many. Maybe it’s time to level up ALL of them!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 7 microexpressions?
The 7 universal microexpressions are happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Paul Ekman’s research found that people in very different cultures, including a remote preliterate one in Papua New Guinea, matched the same faces to the same emotions.
How long do microexpressions typically last?
Microexpressions last half a second or less, and some flash by in 1/25 of a second. By comparison, normal facial expressions (macroexpressions) last 0.5 to 4 seconds.2
Can you fake microexpressions?
Microexpressions are extremely difficult to fake because they occur too quickly for most people to consciously control. The face fires automatically before the conscious mind kicks in. However, trained actors and some individuals can simulate the components of these expressions. Most people can even produce the eye crinkle of a real smile on purpose (more on that in the happiness section).
Are microexpressions reliable?
Microexpressions are real and scientifically documented involuntary expressions. However, they are rare, and honest people show them too. They’re best understood as one piece of a larger puzzle rather than a standalone lie-detection tool.
What is microexpression training?
Microexpression training teaches you to quickly recognize each of the 7 microexpressions so you can spot and respond to them in real life. Ekman’s Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) is the most well-known program, offered through the Paul Ekman Group. Research shows training can boost recognition accuracy, and trained people kept their edge when they were tested again two to three weeks later.18
Are the techniques in Lie to Me real?
The Fox show Lie to Me (2009–2011) was based on Paul Ekman’s research, and Ekman was a scientific advisor.24 The core science is real: microexpressions are involuntary, and they do reveal hidden emotions. However, the show dramatized the accuracy and reliability of reading microexpressions for lie detection. In real life, microexpressions are much rarer and harder to interpret than the show portrayed.
What should you say when you notice a microexpression?
Ask about the topic that triggered it. An open question like “What part of this worries you most?” gives the person room to share, and it still works if your read was wrong.
Microexpressions Takeaway
Microexpressions are real, scientifically documented, and learnable. Here are your next steps:
- Start with one expression. Pick contempt (the one-sided lip raise) and practice spotting it for one week before adding others.
- Establish baselines. Spend the first few minutes of conversations observing someone’s neutral face before reading their expressions.
- Watch the upper face. Give the eyebrows extra attention. The mouth is the half people practice controlling.
- Look for mismatches. A microexpression matters most when it contradicts what someone is saying.
- Practice with video. Pause interviews and study faces frame by frame to build your pattern recognition.
- Remember the limits. Before you act on a flash, check it against their words and their body language.
- Use the 5:1 ratio. When you spot contempt in a relationship, aim for the ratio stable couples keep during conflict: five positive interactions for every negative one.
- Ask about the topic. When you catch a flash, ask an open question about what was just said.
- Check your own face. Before your next meeting, unclench your brow and let your listening face show interest.
If you’re looking to step up your game beyond microexpressions:
- Read and Decode the 7 Nonverbal Cues
- Understand the science behind each emotion
- Try our intensive online training to level up your charisma, communicate powerfully, and take command of your presence
- The Passing of Dr. Paul Ekman (Paul Ekman Group)
- Micro Expressions (Paul Ekman Group)
- Spontaneous Facial Expressions of Emotion of Congenitally and Noncongenitally Blind Individuals (Matsumoto & Willingham, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2009)
- Patterns on the Face: The Eyebrow Flash in Crosscultural Comparison (Grammer, Schiefenhövel, Schleidt, Lorenz & Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Ethology, 1988)
- Gaze Following in Human Infants Depends on Communicative Signals (Senju & Csibra, Current Biology, 2008)
- Predictors of Amygdala Activation During the Processing of Emotional Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis of 385 PET and fMRI Studies (Costafreda et al., Brain Research Reviews, 2008)
- Emotional Suppression: Physiology, Self-Report, and Expressive Behavior (Gross & Levenson, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993)
- A Facial-Action Imposter: How Head Tilt Influences Perceptions of Dominance From a Neutral Face (Witkower & Tracy, Psychological Science, 2019)
- Most People Can Fake a Genuine Duchenne Smile (BPS Research Digest, on Gunnery, Hall & Ruben, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2013)
- Movement Differences Between Deliberate and Spontaneous Facial Expressions: Zygomaticus Major Action in Smiling (Schmidt, Ambadar, Cohn & Reed, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2006)
- Research Shows Eyes That Wrinkle When We Smile, or Frown, Appear More Sincere (Western University, on Malek et al., Emotion, 2019)
- Reading Between the Lies: Identifying Concealed and Falsified Emotions in Universal Facial Expressions (Porter & ten Brinke, Psychological Science, 2008)
- The Four Horsemen: Contempt (The Gottman Institute)
- The Magic Relationship Ratio, According to Science (The Gottman Institute)
- It Pays to Have an Eye for Emotions: Emotion Recognition Ability Indirectly Predicts Annual Income (Momm et al., Journal of Organizational Behavior)
- Team Emotion Recognition Accuracy and Team Performance (Elfenbein, Polzer & Ambady, 2007)
- Microexpressions Are Not the Best Way to Catch a Liar
- Evidence for Training the Ability to Read Microexpressions of Emotion (Matsumoto & Hwang, Motivation and Emotion, 2011)
- A Test of the Micro-Expressions Training Tool: Does It Improve Lie Detection?
- The Face of Success: Inferences from Chief Executive Officers' Appearance Predict Company Profits (Rule & Ambady, Psychological Science, 2008)
- Micromomentary Facial Expressions as Indicators of Ego Mechanisms in Psychotherapy
- Constants Across Cultures in the Face and Emotion (Ekman & Friesen, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1971)
- On the Universality and Cultural Specificity of Emotion Recognition: A Meta-Analysis (Elfenbein & Ambady, Psychological Bulletin, 2002)
- Lie to Me (Paul Ekman Group)
