Tag Archive for: Paul Ekman

Is that smile real or fake?

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You’ve landed on the blog of a “natural”

as depicted in the show “Lie to Me”
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I posted a smile test on my blog back in 2005. I thought I would post about it again for all my new readers.

Can you spot a fake smile? Take the test created by Dr. Paul Ekman, and see.

Last time I took it, I scored 15 out of 20 correct. I had forgotten about this test completely (I had no memory of it!), so I took it again. This time, I scored 18/20.

What did you score?

Microexpression Madness

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When I looked at my hits this morning, I noticed something was up. I had 878 page loads yesterday, and 396 unique visitors — about three to four times what is normal. And it is continuing on today.

What sparked the increased readership? My interest is piqued.

It appears there is a fascination with “microexpressions” in the Google search engine, and a few other search engines, and it is putting people here (on my blog).

I don’t see any external links bringing people here so I can only assume there is a newspaper article, radio show or a television show in the last two days that discussed microexpressions.

If you are coming here for microexpressions — clue me in on what generated such buzz. Of course, Paul Ekman, the guru of microexpressions is always fascinating.

What am I missing?

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Perhaps Donny Deutsch featured Dr. Mark Frank yesterday on The Big Idea? Just a guess. Dr. Mark Frank, Dr. O’Sullivan and Dr. Ekman are colleagues.

I’m a Truth Wizard

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I am pleased to share with you the exciting news that I have now been scientifically tested and classified as a “truth wizard” by scientist and researcher Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan.

I contacted Dr. O’Sullivan back in July of this year, and she agreed to test me. I took the tests and passed. I can’t tell you how excited I was!

This past week, I had the pleasure, honor and privilege of meeting Dr. O’Sullivan in person. It was a dream come true for me!

Dr. O’Sullivan is a Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco, and has been studying people’s ability to understand each other for over 30 years. One way people understand each other is by being able to detect lies. Dr. O’Sullivan started her wizard study back in 1996 with Dr. Paul Ekman, who is a world-renowned facial expression expert.

Dr. O’Sullivan’s “research addresses questions about human emotion including: emotional intelligence, humor, romantic love, lying and truthfulness, courtesy, and cross-cultural differences in emotional experience and expression. She also studies individual differences in intelligence and expertise.” (source: USF biography)

Read more about Dr. O’Sullivan’s wizard study here:

“Wizards can spot the signs of a liar.”

“Select few can identify liars.”

Dr. O’Sullivan has tested over 15,000 people for her study, and has found 46 wizards to date. With that, I’m wizard 46.

So, what does being a wizard actually mean? It means I see most kinds of lies accurately at least 80% of the time (I’m not flawless as I have said before.), whereas the normal person is only as good as a coin-toss in spotting deception.

Dr. O’Sullivan says most people look at the world through rose-colored glasses. They don’t have the “grit” inside them to see the truth, as it isn’t always pleasant.

Now, I am not going to talk about the “Wizards Project”, because Dr. O’Sullivan has asked me not to—and I have promised her I won’t—until the study is complete. So, no questions on “wizards” or the Wizards Project, please, but I can talk about being “me”, if you have interest.

But there you have it—I do have Eyes for Lies!!

More about me here.

Interesting Article

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I read a blog titled Deception Blog from time to time… because as you would guess I am interested in the study of deception detection.

Yesterday this blog posted a link to an interesting article written by Dr. Paul Ekman, who is a world renowned facial expression expert. The article Dr. Ekman wrote was published in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post.

You may find this article interesting. I certainly did. I think the SPOT program is an excellent idea!

How to Spot a Terrorist on the Fly