Microexpression

May 3, 2009 2:16 PM

I've just discovered the world of microexpression. I'd like to learn more, what books, research papers, blogs (and anything else) should I be looking at?
posted by nam3d to education (12 comments total)

Paul Eckman is among the pioneers of this field, and I've heard that Emotions Revealed is a good look at microexpressions aimed at a general audience. It's the one I plan to buy shortly, but I can't personally vouch for any media on this topic.
posted by chudmonkey at 3:20 PM on May 3

Yeah, Ekman is the reigning authority, and with the advent of Lie to Me, he's beginning to get more exposure. You might want to play with this.
posted by darth_tedious at 4:08 PM on May 3

i must admit i did discover microexpressions through Lie To Me, I'd heard a little about this sort of thing before watching the television programme but it really is a fascinating subject and I'd like to learn a little more.
posted by nam3d at 5:29 PM on May 3

Malcolm Gladwell's Blink might be a good introduction---one of the better chapters is about this very subject, and very accessible. But if you're serious about studying it/learning about it in depth, I second Eckman.
posted by MimeticHaHa at 6:35 PM on May 3

Rather, third Eckman. Duh.
posted by MimeticHaHa at 6:36 PM on May 3

Blink did come up in a forum post I read about the subject, I'll add that to my amazon cart as well, thanks for the tip.
posted by nam3d at 8:29 PM on May 3

Gottman was the one covered in Blink.
Funny thing is they use a lot more than just Micro-Expressions in Lie to Me. Some eye movement stuff is from NLP. Other body language stuff can be found in a ton of other books available.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:24 PM on May 3

I should say Gottman was *also* covered in Blink. Eckman of course was in there.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:27 PM on May 3

I just wanted to say the part of Blink that deals with this is pretty much all about Eckman's work. So if you've already read Eckman, Blink shouldn't be a priority. (Read Blink one day anyway; it's fascinating.)
posted by Nattie at 5:08 AM on May 4

There was an article in The New Yorker August 5th, 2002 called The Naked Face, I believe by Gladwell. Long and interesting piece; got me into this as well.
posted by Wylie Kyoto at 9:17 AM on May 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wylle Kyoto, the article is here:
http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_08_05_a_face.htm
posted by nam3d at 11:31 AM on May 4

If you are reading up on Eckman, you might want to start with his earlier stuff. He's kind of changed his public tune. At one point, he spent a lot of time talking about the problems with people who are saying whatever comes into their head (not caring what is or isn't true), people who have repeated the lie so often they are comfortable, and other cases where microexpressions need to be put in context. The news stories I've seen post 9-11 sound like he's saying they're all you need.

One of his early interest was the problem of shrinks becoming advocates for their patients and trusting everything they said - rather than trying to figure out what was going on in the patient's life and how their client was responding. Looks like he's more into CSI stuff now.

Trivia, several years ago HIS EMAILS WERE ALWAYS ENTIRELY IN ALL CAPS which struck me as odd, given his interest in social interaction. Not sure if the university system was some kind of weird antique, or if that was just him...
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:22 PM on May 6