Psychology By Jon Matson

Today, we will be looking at psychology. (obviously) But more specifically…

How many of you watch the show Lie to Me?

Hmmmm?

Well, basically, its a show where a group of people are hired by other people and use their skills in psychology to read other people to tell if they are lying.

Whewww…

I know, it can be very confusing…

But back to the topic.

The way they tell if someone is lying in the show may seem almost like magic, but it is just science!

But its not as easy as they make it seem…

The shows main fictional character, Dr. Cal Lightman, is loosely based on the very real Dr. Paul Ekman.

But they do seem to have a lot in common…

Ekman discovered microexpressions because his mother committed suicide (hes the real discoverer), and Lightman discovered microexpressions because his mother committed suicide.

Exactly how loosely is this?

And to top it off, Ekman did help the police catch criminals at one point of his life.

Ekman is known to be the leading expert of non-verbal communication and emotions.

Ekman is 75 as of this year.

In the show, they mainly use microexpressions and body language to determine if someone is lying.

But it is not nearly that simple.

These things they use only determine the emotion they are feeling.

If they are lying lies completely to psychology.

Although microexpressions are only apparent when somebody is trying to repress or conceal an emotion.

But take pathological liars. Some can lie and almost nobody can detect it.

Maybe not even Dr. Ekman.

So this is considered by most to be a somewhat inexact science.

But it almost always works.

Have any of you ever heard of the Diogenes Project?

I didnt expect you to, for they renamed it the Wizards Project.

It was a project that two psychologists did to test the everyday persons ability to detect lies.

Most people failed miserably.

But about 50 people, of the 20,000 people tested, had the near perfect ability to detect lies.

Thats a mere 0.025% of the testers!

The group that was most adept at detecting lies was… Guess who?

The Secret Service.

And guess who one of the psychologist who the conducted the project.

Dr. Paul Ekman.

Big surprise, huh?

They then studied the wizards (as the 50 people were later called) to learn more about how to detect if someone is lying.

These people can detect lies with no training.

They do exactly what Lightman and his group do with no formal training.

Cool, huh?

And now, lets look at some examples.

This is obviously happiness.

Anger.

Disgust.

Fear?

Sadness.

Surprise. (duh)

I bet you guys dont know what this one is.

That last one was contempt. Its the disregard for someone who you believe is lesser than you. (for all you who didnt know)

All of these are universal emotions, and are all well known.

That except for contempt.

Less is known about contempt than the other ones.

These emotions are biological, rather than environmental as we once thought.

Ekman was the one who figured out that we are born with emotions.

I hope you learned something, and I hope you enjoyed my presentation! I hope you learned something, and I hope you enjoyed my presentation!