Lie to Me: Microexpresiones faciales

Hace ya un tiempo que estoy interesado en el tema de aprender a leer el lenguaje corporal. Sabés como está compuesta la comunicación entre dos personas?  El 7% de la comunicación entre dos personas son las palabras, lo que uno dice. El 93%…si 93%!!!! Es comunicación no verbal. Dentro de ella se incluye el tono y stress de la voz que es un 30% aproximadamente y el resto es gestos del cuerpo y micro expresiones. Es decir que un 63% esta formado por las expresiones faciales y movimientos del cuerpo, no es importante? Qué tanto más nos ayudaría esto si aprendiéramos a interpretar ese 93% que estamos dejando pasar? En los negocios, amor, en las relaciones interpersonales. Toda esta información es muy útil y es real, las palabras muchas veces no lo son.

Micro expresiones.

Una micro expresión es un muy breve e involuntario movimiento facial que se puede ver en el rostro cuando uno está tratando de esconder una emoción. Usualmente es más fácil detectarlas cuando la persona está en situaciones de alto stress, donde la persona tiene algo para perder o ganar. (cuando estas tratando de mentir o engañar).

Una expreción regular de nuestro rostro se puede simular facilmente, pero es muy difícil simular una micro expresión. Las micro expresiones consisten en una composición de siete emociones universales: repugnancia, desprecio, ira, miedo, tristeza, alegría y  sorpresa. Una micro expresión puede durar 1/25  parte de un segundo. Es decir que hay que estar muy atento y tener mucha práctica para poder leerlas.

A continuación mostraremos algunas imágenes de como es cada expresión relacionada a estos siete sentimientos universales. Las imágenes don del brillante Tim Roth  – Dr Lightman en la increíble serie de FOX TV  ‘Lie To Me’.

SOBRE MICRO EXPRESIONES

Thirty years ago, Paul Ekman did cross-cultural research and identified seven basic human emotions. He identified the seven basic emotions through facial expressions. No matter where in the world, what culture, class, race, gender, or lighting, these seven facial expressions were identified across the board. By learning to identify these seven basic human emotions, you will get insight into just what people are experiencing, and if they are lying to you!

Emotions are displayed based on how the muscles in your face move. While researching the face, Ekman created a coding system to identify all of the possible movements that each of you facial muscles can make called the Facial Action Coding System. You don’t have to become an expert in the FACS to read faces though. Ekman offers a nice set of tools to help you better identify people’s facial expressions in real-time.

On Dr Ekman’s website (Please see the link at the top of this lens) you can view a few video interviews that he has done over the years analyzing and explaining his reading of faces. These videos are great both as training tools to understand the range and depth of information that faces present. They also give you a great insight into how you can use facial recognition to more accurately read a person’s emotional state, both the subtle emotions people experience and the emotions they don’t want you to see.

Mr. Ekman has created two training modules that can help you identify these seven basicfacial expressions with more precision and ease. It is relatively easy to identify these facial expression when we are shown apicture, but people don’t usually wear their expressions for minutes at a time! On his website, you can use his training videos to identify what he callmicro-expressions and subtle-expressions.

Subtle expressions-

Subtle expressions happen when someone experiences an emotion very briefly or when the emotion is not as intense. The subtle expression training tool shows you how to recognize the subtle movements in a person’s facial muscles that correspond with various emotions.

Micro expressions-

Micro expressions occur when a person is trying to suppress or repress an emotion. Have you ever tried to not smile, or not look angry? In the show Lie To Me, the main character deals with people who are constantly trying to hide their emotions. This training enables you to read a person’s emotional state, even when they don’t want you to!

Using these two training programs will not only help you read ‘pure emotions’, but you will also learn to notice when someone displays conflicting emotions, as in where they’re not sure what to think or feel about something. Mixed emotions are displayed by people when they have two contrasting emotions. Because people can experience more than one emotion at a time, our faces sometimes give off mixed signals. For a brief instant, someone may smile with their mouth at a joke and at the same time display anger with their brow.

La verdad es que un tema súper interestante y al que creo le debemos prestar más atención.