Contents
When the face is fake
«Left» experiment by Harold Zakaim
Once upon a time, the American psychologist Paul Ekman, professor at the University of California San Francisco, the largest specialist in the field of lie detection, was approached by his colleague, Harold Sackeim,
professor of clinical psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University.
Harold Zakaim (with colleagues) decided to conduct an interesting experiment for which he needed photographs of faces expressing various emotions.
And Ekman, studying facial expressions for many years, has collected a huge archive of such photographs. So Zakaim asked Ekman to lend him some emotional illustrations to experiment with.
Of course, dear colleague! — Ekman probably answered and lent Zakaim illustrations.
If you, dear reader, are not familiar with the works of Paul Ekman, the easiest way to do this is by watching the series Lie to Me.
In the show, of course, it’s not Paul Ekman, but «Dr. Lightman» (played by Tim Roth).
But at its core, by watching Dr. Lightman at work, you get to know the realm of Paul Ekman’s years of research.
«Theory of Lies» is the easiest and most accessible way to get acquainted with the works of the great scientist. By the way, Professor Ekman is a consultant for this series.
But back to Harold Zakaim. Having received the photographs, Zakaim and his colleagues multiplied these photographs and… cut them up. Cut? — you ask. What for?
But why.
Zakim’s experiment
Suppose Zakim took a photo of Brad Pitt and cut it up. I cut it so that on one part there was only the right half of the face, and on the second — the left.
After that, Zakim folded the face of Brad Pitt again, but only … from one left or one right halves.
The result was two Pitt mutants. It may seem strange to you, such terrible transformations with a Hollywood sex symbol: but keep in mind that we are training at Pitt, and Zakaim used photographs of unknown people.
How many faces do people have? Whatever happens.
Having put on a photo of mutants, Zakaim presented them to different people and asked them to answer: which of the faces, in their opinion, is more emotional?
You can try it yourself: look carefully at the photo of the mutant Pitt, and tell me which one is more emotional? «Right» or «Left»?
The answers of the respondents invariably coincided: the face, consisting of the left halves, is more emotional.
Anger. Fear. Sadness. The «left» face was invariably more emotional than the «right» face.
And only in one case, the respondents did not find any difference between right and left faces.
They were people with a happy expression.
In all other cases, the left half of a person’s face was invariably more emotional than the right.
The result of the experiment was expected for Zakaim. Expected, because that was his assumption, his hypothesis. The hypothesis that the left side of the face is more emotional. But why?
But why.
brain asymmetry
There is such a thing as “brain asymmetry”. Or: «hemispheric asymmetry.» In simple terms, the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the work of the left side of the body, and the left — for the right. Hence the asymmetry.
- Which hemisphere controls the left hand? Right.
- Which hemisphere controls the right hand? Left.
- Which hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the face? Left.
- Which hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the face? Right.
And so on.
Each hemisphere has its own specialization.
The left hemisphere, for example, is responsible for writing and counting. When you analyze something, it is the left hemisphere that does it.
The right hemisphere imagines, dreams and fantasizes. If you want to imagine what Hitler looks like with a zebra, your right brain will help you.
It is known that the right hemisphere is responsible for the emotional sphere of a person.
And, therefore, Zakaim suggested, the “left face” (whose muscles are controlled by the right hemisphere) will be more emotional, more mimically expressive than the “right face”.
That was fully confirmed in his experiment.
Well, almost completely. Except for the happy faces mentioned above.
Zakaim did not draw any conclusions from this, and published the results of his experiment in Science (1978).
But when Ekman read his colleague’s article, his eyes widened in surprise.
And there was a reason to climb.
Symmetry of happiness
And the thing is that Ekman’s photographs, provided by Zakaim, were … mmm … not quite uniform.
Most of the photos were staged. Ekman asked the subjects to move certain facial muscles in order to get the right emotion.
And only the photos of happy faces were genuine. Ekman did them without warning, at a time when people were really having fun.
At the time when Zakaim asked to lend him illustrations, Ekman did not attach any importance to this. Some staged, others real. Who cares?
When a person smiles, a certain group of muscles moves. When angry, another. When upset, third. If you move these muscles intentionally, the result on the face will be the same as in the case of genuine emotions.
But when Ekman read Zakaim’s paper, he found that there was a difference. And that the people who were the exception in his illustrations, for some reason, do not succumb to Zakaim’s rule of emotional facial asymmetry.
The conclusion suggests itself: asymmetry occurs when a person demonstrates a false emotion. artificial emotion. Intentional emotion.
If the emotion is real, then facial asymmetry is practically absent.
Ekman checked and rechecked this conclusion, and the result was the same: when people “fake” the face, the emotion appears asymmetrically on the face.
And their left “face” is really more emotional than their “right” one.
If Zakaim had known that he was working with «fake» emotions, he might have come to a similar conclusion.
Conclusion
At first, Paul Ekman was skeptical about his discovery.
“The asymmetry is so subtle that it is almost impossible to determine it without the help of precise measurements,” he writes in his book The Psychology of Lies.
The professor is understandable. After all, when he conveyed “fake” emotions to Zakaim, he had no idea that they were somehow different from genuine emotions.
If he, a professor of psychology, simply overlooked the fact that a fake, “made” emotion stretched over his face is unevenly distributed over his face, then how can the rest be able to notice this?
However, this skepticism was shattered at the first checks.
When asked whether the expression of a particular person is symmetrical or asymmetrical, the percentage of correct answers of the respondents turned out to be significantly higher than the random one.
Subsequently, with the help of various experiments, Paul Ekman made many refinements to his original conclusion.
For example, a left-hander’s fake smile is slightly less asymmetrical than a right-hander’s.
In some cases, emotional facial asymmetry manifests itself on the left, and in others — on the right side of the face.
Anger and a smile are more pronounced on the «left» face.
Fear and disgust on the «right».
Ekman also found that not only the face, but also some movements can be asymmetric in «made» emotions.
I repeat that in all these cases we are talking about false, staged, imitated emotions.
Regarding genuine emotions, the conclusion remained unchanged:
If the emotion is real, then facial asymmetry is practically absent.
Watch it.
For your friends. For colleagues at work. Behind the politicians on the TV screen.
This is a very interesting and very productive way to understand the sincerity of the emotions that people around you broadcast.