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Secrets and Lies: Involuntary Leakage in Deceptive Facial Expressions as a Function of Emotional Intensity

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Abstract

Darwin (1872) hypothesized that some facial muscle actions associated with emotion cannot be consciously inhibited, particularly when the to-be concealed emotion is strong. The present study investigated emotional “leakage” in deceptive facial expressions as a function of emotional intensity. Participants viewed low or high intensity disgusting, sad, frightening, and happy images, responding to each with a 5 s videotaped genuine or deceptive expression. Each 1/30 s frame of the 1,711 expressions (256,650 frames in total) was analyzed for the presence and duration of universal expressions. Results strongly supported the inhibition hypothesis. In general, emotional leakage lasted longer in both the upper and lower face during high-intensity masked, relative to low-intensity, masked expressions. High intensity emotion was more difficult to conceal than low intensity emotion during emotional neutralization, leading to a greater likelihood of emotional leakage in the upper face. The greatest and least amount of emotional leakage occurred during fearful and happiness expressions, respectively. Untrained observers were unable to discriminate real and false expressions above the level of chance.

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Notes

  1. Mean arousal ratings for each emotion, by intensity, were as follows: high happiness (M = 5.40), low happiness (M = 4.03), high sad (M = 5.86), low sad (M = 3.94), high fear (M = 6.61), low fear (M = 6.17), high disgust (M = 6.46), low disgust (M = 4.25), and neutral (M = 3.04). Mean valence ratings were: high happiness (M = 7.56), low happiness (M = 7.60), high sad (M = 2.30), low sad (M = 4.00), high fear (M = 3.90), low fear (M = 4.03), high disgust (M = 2.31), low disgust (M = 3.28), and neutral (M = 4.82).

  2. In all analyses, the order of images to which the participants was assigned was included as a between-subjects variable. The effect of this variable was never statistically significant, p’s > .05, and was dropped from subsequent analyses.

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  1. Centre for the Advancement of Psychological Science and Law, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7, Canada

    Stephen Porter, Leanne ten Brinke & Brendan Wallace

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  1. Stephen Porter
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  2. Leanne ten Brinke
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Correspondence to Stephen Porter.

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Porter, S., ten Brinke, L. & Wallace, B. Secrets and Lies: Involuntary Leakage in Deceptive Facial Expressions as a Function of Emotional Intensity. J Nonverbal Behav 36, 23–37 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-011-0120-7

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