Behavioral Sciences & the Law

Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bsl.729

From Flawed Self-Assessment

to Blatant Whoppers: The
Utility of Voluntary and
Involuntary Behavior in
Detecting Deception
Paul Ekman, Ph.D.,y and
Maureen O’Sullivan, Ph.D.*,z

Malingering occupies a range on a continuum from biased

self-perception to conscious, deliberate, serious lies. One
aspect of this continuum is the element of self-conscious or
deliberate control. Suggestions from Darwin’s writings
concerning the role of voluntary and involuntary activation
of the facial muscles are examined and illustrated with data
from a 40 year program of research on deception. The
impact of the voluntary–involuntary distinction on the
appearance, timing, symmetry and cohesion of facial
expressions of emotion is explained. Data relevant to
changes in vocal and gestural aspects of demeanor in
honest and deceptive behavior are also reviewed. The
relevance of these laboratory-based findings on the volun-
tary control of nonverbal behavior in assessing some types
of malingering is discussed. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.

‘Mr. Seward is limited to a couple of stories which from repeating he believes are true.’
Abraham Lincoln (Donald, 2003, p. 170).

The search for truth is a difficult one, since reality reflects the biological, social and
psychological factors of each person’s life and may not always be reflected in
external, tangible reality. Moreover, as Lincoln noted, mere repetition of a story may
blur the teller’s belief in its veracity. Malingering, in which people feign, in whole or
in part, symptoms of a physical or mental illness, can be mid-way along a continuum
of deception or at the extreme end. One way in which to differentiate types of lie and
deception is in terms of the intent of the liar. On one end of this intention continuum
are the difficult-to-extricate-because-believed phenomena such as denial, repression
and dissociation. These distortions of reality are among the least intentional. Further
along the continuum are what have been called self-deceptions (Adler, 1928),
*Correspondence to: Dr M. O’Sullivan, Department of Psychology, University of San Francisco, 2130
Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA. E-mail: osullivan@usfca.edu
y
Professor of Psychology (Emeritus), University of California, San Francisco.
z
Professor of Psycology.

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

674 P. Ekman and M. O’Sullivan

positive illusions (Taylor & Brown, 1988), self-aggrandizements (Dunning, Heath,

& Suls, 2004) and non-conscious cognitions (Bargh, Gollwitzer, & Lee-Chai,
2001)—activities that seem to characterize the thought processes of most people and
that are usually more readily accessible to consciousness than the more
pathologically motivated denials and dissociations. These fairly benign and possibly
helpful distortions (Dunning et al., 2004) seem to be more related to the positive
attitude one holds about oneself rather than an attempt to deceive others, although
that is certainly a potential side-effect of such distortions. Further along the
continuum are the white lies, compliments and courtesies that are intended to
mislead as part of the minuet of social life, but in which the target often participates.
The midpoint of the deception continuum is populated by some cases of
malingering, factitious disorders, some dissociative disorders and other activities,
which are often a blend of conscious and unconscious factors from the start, or are so
practiced that the issue of whether they are conscious or not is extremely difficult to
untangle. At the furthest end of the deception continuum are the deliberate, high
stakes lies in which we have been most interested and have studied in greatest detail.
Some cases of malingering may fall at this end of the continuum, although the
repeated telling of the high stakes lies when insurance investigations or legal
interrogations are involved may undermine the spontaneous expressions and verbal
descriptions that are particularly useful in high stakes lie detection in the laboratory,
when lies are usually only told once. Moreover, as Lincoln noted, repeating a story to
others may cause the teller to believe he is telling the truth.
As the other articles in this special issue suggest, assessment of lying and
malingering in the clinical realm has largely depended on analyses of people’s
statements, in interviews (Mittenberg, Patton, Canyock, & Condit, 2002) or on
inventories (Jackson, Rogers, & Sewell, 2005). More than 60 years ago, the MMPI
distinguished faking bad and two kinds of faking good, the more obvious L scale and
the more subtly self-enhancing K scale. Research on the utility of this measure is still
being conducted (Lees-Haley, Iverson, Lange, Fox, & Allen, 2002). Measures of
social desirability (Marlowe & Crowne, 1960) are widely used to correct for the self-
aggrandizement common in most self-report inventories. Laboratory researchers
have also reported differences in the verbal statements of liars and truth tellers
(Newman, Pennebaker, & Berry, 2003); others including Kohnken (2005) have
demonstrated differences in the kinds of language used by those who are mis-
remembering, those who are totally fabricating and those who are merely confused
in their recollections. Although we (O’Sullivan, Ekman, Friesen, & Scherer, 1985;
Ekman, O’Sullivan, Friesen, & Scherer, 1991) have also studied the content of
speech, our principal focus in the study of deception has been on other than verbal
content, focusing on the nonverbal aspects of demeanor. In this report, we will
emphasize two aspects of that research program: the fine-grained analysis of
behavioral clues to deceit and individual differences in the ability to detect deception.
Our definition of a lie is the deliberate intention to mislead, without prior
notification of the target of the lie (Ekman, 2001). We have restricted our attention to
observable verbal and nonverbal behaviors associated with this intention. In our
research, we have attempted to simulate important real life lies, such as the
professional management of feelings that occurs among health professionals, lies
about strongly held political and cultural beliefs and lies about crimes such as
stealing money. Our experimental paradigms also provided additional rewards and

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
DOI: 10.1002/bsl
 Involuntary behavior and deception 675

punishments so as to ‘‘up the ante’’ in terms of the motivation for success of the
participants, whether they were telling the truth or lying (for more information see
Ekman & Friesen, 1974; Frank & Ekman, 1997). Our work has focused particularly
on the face and is based on Darwin’s thinking about the biological bases, and
consequent universality, of human facial expressions of emotion.
Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was first published in
1872 (3rd ed., 1998). Among his many extraordinary contributions, Darwin
gathered evidence that some emotions have a universal facial expression, cited
examples and published pictures suggesting that emotions are evident in other
animals and proposed principles explaining why particular expressions occur for
particular emotions, which, he maintained, applied to the expressions of all animals.
But Darwin did not consider at any length when, how and why emotional
expressions are reliable or misleading. In the index to his book, the terms deception,
lies and lying are not listed. In the 19-page conclusion there is only one sentence
relevant to deception: ‘‘They [the movements of expression] reveal the thoughts and
intentions of others more truly than do words, which may be falsified’’ (p. 359). We
now know that this is too simple; some facial expressions can be very misleading. In
brief comments elsewhere, Darwin provides a more complex view, suggesting how
true feelings may be shown despite efforts to conceal emotions and also how false
expressions, which display emotions not felt, may be betrayed. Darwin suggested
that muscles that are difficult to activate voluntarily might escape efforts to inhibit or
mask expression, revealing true feelings. ‘‘[W]hen movements, associated through
habit with certain states of the mind, are partially repressed by the will, the strictly
involuntary muscles, as well as those which are least under the separate control of the
will, are liable still to act; and their action is often highly expressive’’ (p. 54). He
expressed a similar belief when he wrote ‘‘. . .muscles of the face which are
least obedient to the will, will sometimes alone betray a slight and passing emotion’’
(p. 79).’’
Darwin is suggesting that if you can not make an action voluntarily then you will
not be able to prevent its action when involuntary processes such as emotion instigate
it. Darwin does not explain why he believed such inhibition would occur, but it is
now well known that the facial nucleus, which transmits impulses to specific muscles
to contract or relax, receives impulses from many different parts of the brain. The
motor cortex is the source of the impulses resulting from voluntary efforts to make a
facial expression. Other areas of the brain send impulses to the facial nucleus when
emotions are aroused involuntarily. Clinical reports about various neurological
disorders (Kahn, 1966; Meihlke, 1973; Myers, 1976; Tschiassny, 1953), supports
the distinction between voluntary and involuntary facial actions, and between facial
movements that are easy or difficult to make deliberately.
Each type of facial expression may depend upon different potentially independent
neural pathways. Lesions in the pyramidal systems impair the ability to perform a
facial movement on request, such as the ability to smile when asked to do so, yet may
leave emotional expressions intact, so that the patient might smile if amused by a
joke. Lesions in the nonpyramidal systems may produce the reverse pattern; so, for
example, a patient could smile on request but might not be able to do so
spontaneously.
However, Darwin’s inhibition hypothesis goes beyond simply distinguishing
between voluntary and involuntary facial muscular actions. He suggests that if you

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
DOI: 10.1002/bsl
676 P. Ekman and M. O’Sullivan

can not voluntarily activate a muscle, then you will not be able to voluntarily inhibit
its involuntary activation in a spontaneous emotional expression. To determine
whether Darwin’s hypothesis was correct, one must first identify which facial actions
are difficult to make deliberately. Ekman, Roper, & Hager (1980) did this and found
that fewer than 25% of their subjects were able to deliberately produce the following
facial actions: orbicularis oristriangularis, depressor labii inferioris; frontalis, pars medialis;
frontalis, pars lateralis; risorius, and orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis, as well as several
emotion-relevant combinations of these facial actions. If Darwin is correct, then these
movements should provide what Ekman & Friesen (1974) called leakage of felt
emotions. Leakage occurs when parts of an expression occur or occur very rapidly,
betraying how a person feels even when the person is attempting to conceal their
feelings. Examining videotapes of people lying and telling the truth demonstrates, again
and again, instances in which the activity of these muscles is not sufficiently inhibited.
This does not occur in all people, but in many. Ekman (2001) has called the facial
actions that are not easily controlled by most people the reliable facial muscles, because
when they occur they are reliable or trustworthy indicators of the related emotion.
Most, although not all, of our research program on deception is based on the
premise that emotion is biologically based, cross-culturally universal and difficult for
most people to voluntarily inhibit. Over the years, our research has emphasized facial
expressions of emotion, both generally and as it occurs during deception. Felt
expressions are different from feigned expressions, or those that occur when people
are trying to inhibit or exaggerate them. The following are some of the differences we
have found:
(1) Morphology. The appearance and shape of the facial expression when emotion is
felt is different than when it is feigned. This is best documented for enjoyment
(Frank, Ekman, & Friesen, 1993), but the absence of any of the reliable
movements should raise a question about whether the expression is voluntary
rather than involuntary, and the presence of the reliable actions should suggest
that an expression is genuine.
(2) Timing: duration and speed of onset. Very brief (under ½ second and very long
(more than 5 seconds) facial expressions of emotion should occur more often
with deliberate than spontaneous expressions. Although this varies with social
circumstances, onsets of facial expressions will more often be abrupt with
deliberate than spontaneous expression.
(3) Symmetry. While tedious to measure, and not likely to be detectable in real time,
asymmetry is a mark that the expression is deliberate. (An exception to this is the
facial expression of contempt, which involves a unilateral lip raise.)
(4) Cohesion, including ballistic trajectory and apex overlap. Overall, facial expressions
will be consistent with what is being said and with other aspects of demeanor.
Within facial expressions themselves, the expression will appear smooth over its
trajectory, without a stepped or jagged offset.

MORPHOLOGY

Biologically based emotions have facial expressions characterized by the ‘‘reliable’’

muscle movements described above. If an emotion is being feigned or inhibited, the

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
DOI: 10.1002/bsl
 Involuntary behavior and deception 677

appearance of these muscles, for most people, will be affected. The facial muscles
will not move in the same way as they do in a true, felt emotional experience. We have
done most work illustrating this phenomenon with the smile. Ekman & Friesen
(1982) distinguished several different smiles; Ekman, Friesen, & O’Sullivan (1988))
described the differences between felt and false smiles in lying and honest behavior;
and Frank et al. (1993) measured more fine grained aspects of felt and false smiles
using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (Ekman & Friesen, 1978), which
identifies each and every facial muscular movement. In their study, when the subjects
attempted to conceal negative emotions, claiming to feel enjoyment, they showed
more masking smiles, in which a smile (zygomatic major or AU 12 in FACS code) is
superimposed over muscular actions associated with fear, sadness or disgust, than
when they truthfully described enjoyable feelings. Just the reverse was found with the
type of smile that other evidence (described below) has identified as a sign of
enjoyment (zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis or Aus 6þ12). This type
of smile was shown more often when the subjects honestly described enjoyable
feelings than when they falsely claimed to have such feelings.
The idea that actions that are difficult to make voluntarily will leak otherwise
concealed emotions (Darwin’s inhibition hypothesis) is logically related to
Duchenne’s proposal about how to distinguish enjoyment from non-enjoyment
smiling. Duchenne (1862, 1990) compared the smile produced when he electrically
stimulated the zygomatic major muscle with a smile generated when he told the man a
joke, as shown in Figure 1.
The smile in response to a joke included not just zygomatic major, but also the
orbicularis oculi muscle (which orbits the eye, pulling the cheeks up, producing crows’
feet and slightly lowering the brows). Without orbicularis oculi, Duchenne said, ‘‘. . .
no joy could be painted on the face truthfully. . . it is only brought into play by a

Figure 1. Unfelt and felt (Duchenne) smiles.

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
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678 P. Ekman and M. O’Sullivan

genuinely agreeable emotion. Its inertia in smiling unmasks a false friend’’ (p. 72).
Like Duchenne, we found that most people cannot voluntarily make this action and
those who can do it usually cannot do so on both sides of their face simultaneously.
In Facial Expressions of Man and Animal, Darwin included Duchenne’s
photographs showing the smile with and without the involvement of orbicularis
oculi. Darwin noted that the best sign that the muscle is not active is the failure of the
eyebrows to lower slightly. This is consistent with what we have found in the
laboratory: It is not the entire orbicularis oculi whose absence unmasks the false friend,
only the outer portion of this muscle, orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis (AU 6).
In discussing the smile that lacks orbicularis oculi, Duchenne said, ‘‘You cannot
always exaggerate the significance of this kind of smile, which often is only a simple
smile of politeness, just as it can cover a treason. . . .We. . . politely smile with our lips
at the same time as being malcontented or when the soul is sad.’’ (p 127, 128).
Darwin tested Duchenne’s proposal by showing Duchenne’s photographs to
observers. He reported that only the photographs which included orbicularis
oculi were said to be showing happiness. In honor of Duchenne’s early observation,
smiles that incorporate orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis are now referred to as Duchenne
smiles.
The failure to use Duchenne’s distinction between smiles with and without
orbicularis oculi led to the mistaken conclusion that smiling is unrelated to emotion
(Landis, 1924). Even in recent years some investigators fail to take the trouble to
distinguish between Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiling. For example, Fridlund
(1991) reported no relationship between smiling and self-reported happiness. Yet we
had reported earlier (Ekman, Friesen, & Ancoli, 1980) that Duchenne smiles were
related to self-reported happiness, but total amount of smiling (Fridlund’s measure)
was not. We also found that Duchenne smiles occurred more often when people
watched amusing films as compared to gory films. Consistent with these findings,
Ekman, Davidson, & Friesen (1990) found that only Duchenne smiles distinguished
which of two positive experiences subjects reported enjoying the most.
Currently, all those who study deception (apart from our group) have continued
to ignore Duchenne’s distinction, and mistakenly conclude that smiling is unrelated
to truthfulness. For example, in their meta-analysis of cues to deception, although
reporting accurately that, ‘‘The combined effects tend to support Ekman’s position.
When only pretending to be experiencing genuinely positive affect, people were less
likely to show genuine smiles (d ¼
0.70) and more likely to show feigned ones
(d ¼ 0.31).’’ (DePaulo et al., 2003, p. 96) DePaulo and her colleagues still combined
all kinds of smile and concluded, ‘‘The most notable finding was that the 27
estimates of smiling produced a combined effect size of exactly zero’’(p. 96).
Similarly, Vrij (2000), while noting that, ‘‘. . . Ekman and his colleagues discovered
that smiles are related to deception when a distinction is made between felt and false
smiles’’ (p. 39), still summarizes the results by saying ‘‘Table 2.1 shows that smiles
are not related to deception’’ (p. 39).
In the last 20 years, a number of studies have supported Duchenne’s distinction
between felt and false smiles. Fox & Davidson (1988) found more Duchenne smiles
in ten-month-old infants when they were approached by their mothers, more other
forms of smiling when the infants were approached by strangers. The children were
not lying by our definition of a lie, but their emotion was also not unmitigated delight
when approached by strangers. When Fox and Davidson combined Duchenne and

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
DOI: 10.1002/bsl
 Involuntary behavior and deception 679

non-Duchenne smiles the differences between mother and stranger approach

disappeared, just as they do when different smiles are combined in distinguishing
liars and truth-tellers. Fox and Davidson also found that only Duchenne smiles were
associated with left frontal EEG activation, the pattern of cerebral activity repeatedly
found in positive affect. This EEG pattern of cerebral activity was found in adults
watching amusing films only when they simultaneously showed Duchenne smiles.
Moreover, when Ekman & Davidson (1993) selected the minority of their subjects
who could voluntarily contract the orbicularis oculi, pars lateralis and asked them to
make a Duchenne smile and a non-Duchenne smile, the EEG pattern of
cerebral activity associated with enjoyment was generated only by their Duchenne
smiles. Woodzicka & LaFrance (2005) demonstrated the occurrence of non-
Duchenne smiles when women were harassed during a job interview, but felt
enjoyment (Duchenne) smiles when they were not harassed. Hess & Kleck (1990)
and Harris & Alvarado (2005) also reported distinctions between experienced and
feigned smiles. (Other reports may be found in the work of Ekman & Rosenberg,
2005.)
Clearly, the distinction between Duchenne smiles and other forms of smiling
based simply on the presence or absence of a muscle that most people cannot activate
voluntarily (orbicularis oculi, pars medialis) is powerful. However, the fact that
measurements reveal a difference does not tell us whether observers can see this
difference when viewing expressions in real time. Frank & his colleagues (1993)
addressed this matter by asking observers to judge whether each smile they saw was a
true, genuine expression of enjoyment or a false or social expression. When the
observers saw each smile one at a time, they were correct only 56% of the time,
although this was better than chance (t(39) ¼ 2.97, p < 0.01). When they were
shown two smiles of the same person, one a Duchenne smile and one that was not,
accuracy was significantly (p < 0.0001) higher (74%) (t(39) ¼ 12.47, p < 0.001).
Although neither condition, judging single smiles, or judging pairs of smiles,
resembles real life contexts in which smiles are embedded in other behaviors,
including speech, voice and gesture, this study does demonstrate that Duchenne
smiling can be recognized in real time. The relevance of this information for
clinicians interested in detecting malingering is to observe the morphology of a
client’s smile. If a smile is not a Duchenne smile, the reasons for feigning
pleasantness need to be explored.
It is likely that these findings about the Duchenne smile can be extended to a wider
set of emotional facial expressions, such as those involved in pain (Craig, Hyde, &
Patrick, 1991), which is directly related to the physical symptom involved in many
cases of malingering. When emotional expressions lack a muscular movement that is
difficult to make voluntarily, that expression should be less reliable, and
those expressions that contain the reliable muscle should be more likely to be
trustworthy. Such reliable muscles occur as part of the sadness expression (Au1,
raising the inner corners of the eyebrow, Aus 1 þ 4, raising the inner corner of the
eyebrows and pulling them together and Au 15, lowering the lip corners), fear (Aus
1 þ 2 þ 4, raising the eyebrows and pulling them together, and Au 20, stretching the
mouth laterally), and anger (Au 23, narrowing the lips). Although observations of
truthful and deceptive situations containing these movements are consistent with
these hypotheses, the research to examine the hypotheses empirically has not been
done.

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
DOI: 10.1002/bsl
680 P. Ekman and M. O’Sullivan

TIMING

In the late 1960s, before the experiment described above, Ekman & Friesen (1969a)
discovered micro facial expressions when examining films of psychiatric patients who
had lied during a clinical interview, concealing either plans to commit suicide, or
hallucinations. They defined micro expressions as being ‘‘. . .so brief that they are
barely perceptible to the untrained observer. Micro displays may be fragments of a
squelched, neutralized or masked display. Micro displays may also show the full
muscular movements associated with macro affect display, but may be greatly
reduced in time. We have found that such micro displays when shown in slow motion
do convey emotional information to observers, and that expert clinical observers can
see micro displays and read the emotional information without the benefit of slow
motion projection’’ (p. 97).
Since Ekman and Friesen found that some people were able to see micro
expressions in real time, it seems logical to assume that people who are highly trained
in observing facial movement might make accurate judgments when they saw
videotapes of subjects who lied or told the truth about the emotions they felt. In
1974, Ekman and Friesen constructed the Brief Affect Recognition Test (BART)
by tachistoscopically presenting photographs of very intense facial expressions for
1/25 second. Previous research had established that the photographs used in BART
were easily recognized, with high agreement across cultures, when they were viewed
for ten seconds. As predicted, accuracy on this tachistoscopic test was significantly
correlated with accuracy in identifying from videotapes which of ten women were
lying or telling the truth about their emotions (r ¼ 0.27, p < 0.02). (The correlation
might have been higher if all the women showed micro expressions, but they did not.)
In a second study (Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991), a different test of the ability to
identify facial expressions was constructed from a different set of facial expressions
that elicit high agreement across cultures (Matsumoto & Ekman, 1988). When this
second set of photos was shown tachistoscopically, once again, micro recognition
accuracy correlated with deception judgment accuracy (r ¼ 0.34, p < 0.04).
A potential limitation of testing the ability to recognize micro expressions with a
tachistoscopic presentation of facial expressions is that unlike real life there is no
preceding or following expression. To remedy this problem, Ekman (2002)
produced a new instrument in which a neutral image of a person is shown, followed
by an emotional expression for 1/15 sec, followed by the neutral image of that person
once again. No after-image lingers as the neutral face follows immediately.
Photographs of Caucasian and Japanese intense expressions, the JACFEE set
(Matsumoto et al., 2000), were used, and the test was called JACBART. Frank
(personal communication, May 15, 2002) used items from JACBART and found
that accuracy on it correlated with accuracy in judging videos in which 18 people lied
or told the truth about their beliefs on a controversial social issue. This was so both
for Australians (n ¼ 104, r ¼ 0.19, p < 0.05) and for Americans (n ¼ 34, r ¼ 0.30,
p < 0.05) who took both tests.
Matsumoto & his colleagues (2000) used a 56 item version of JACBART in five
experiments. They established that JACBART is reliable, both in terms of internal
consistency and over time. They also found that accuracy was consistently, but
modestly, correlated with the Openness score on the Big Five Inventory-54 (John,
unpublished test). People who score high on Openness are considered to be more

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 Involuntary behavior and deception 681

attentive and receptive to the environment and the people around them. Accuracy on
JACBART was also correlated with Extraversion, but on only one of two personality
tests (the Eysenck, but not the BFI-54).
Recently, Ekman developed a version of JACBART that is intended to train
people to improve accuracy in recognizing micro expressions. This Micro
Expression Training Tool (METT) (Ekman, 2002) includes feedback about the
correct answers, morphed faces contrasting the most difficult to discriminate
emotions, and a pre and post test. In two recent studies, Ekman & Frank (2005)
provided training on detecting deception using METT. They obtained a very large
increase in accuracy with less than one hour of training with METT. Thus it appears
that, while most people are not able to recognize micro expressions without training,
most can learn to become sensitive to them.

SYMMETRY
In 1978, Sackeim, Gur and Saucy reported that emotions were more intensely
expressed on the left side of the face than the right and that this effect was evident for
all basic emotions except for happiness. Serendipitously, Ekman & Friesen (1976)
had supplied Sackeim and his colleagues with the face photographs they used and
they knew that only the happy ones were expressions of felt emotion, having occurred
spontaneously as the photographer joked with the models. All the other photographs
had been taken by asking the models to deliberately move a specified set of facial
action units. Ekman & Friesen reasoned that deliberately made facial expressions,
such as false smiles, would require more cortical involvement and thereby be more
likely to show asymmetry because of cerebral specialization than uncontrolled,
spontaneous, felt emotional expressions. The early work by Lynn & Lynn (1938,
1943) on facial asymmetries supports the finding that asymmetries are rare for
spontaneous smiles.
Ekman, Hager, & Friesen (1981) verified this difference in symmetry. In one
study they found that when children were asked to imitate facial movements, they
produced asymmetrical facial actions, while the spontaneous smiles they showed
during the task were symmetrical. The symmetry of the expressions shown by adults
watching pleasant and unpleasant films was consistent with the children’s results.
Their smiles in response to watching an amusing film were nearly always (96%)
symmetrical. The expressions that included facial actions associated with negative
emotions shown when watching unpleasant films were also predominantly
symmetrical (75%).
Hager & Ekman (1985) extended the earlier findings by comparing the facial
actions shown in response to a very loud noise (startle) with deliberately performed
actions, and with a smile made in response to an amusing event. Spontaneous smiles
were more symmetrical than requested smiles. The action of orbicularis oculi, pars
lateralis (the sign of genuine enjoyment identified by Duchenne described earlier)
was also more symmetrical when it accompanied a spontaneous smile as compared
to when it was deliberately performed. Stretching the lips horizontally (AU 20) was
more symmetrical when it occurred in response to the loud noise than when it was
deliberately performed.

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Behav. Sci. Law 24: 673–686 (2006)
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682 P. Ekman and M. O’Sullivan

Hager & Ekman had intended to compare the spontaneous reaction to the
startling noise with a simulated startle, but when subjects simulated a startle they
performed very different actions than those that had been shown spontaneously.
They had also intended to compare spontaneous emotional reaction with posed
emotions, but there were too few spontaneous actions to allow the comparison.
When facial actions were asymmetrical, the side of the face in which the facial
movement was stronger varied muscle by muscle, unrelated to the branch of the
facial nerve that activates each muscle.

TIMING

Ekman & Friesen (1982) found that spontaneous expressions were usually between
two-thirds of a second and four seconds. Their observation was limited to
spontaneous smiles shown when subjects had watched pleasant films. Hess & Kleck
(1990) replicated this observation, finding a difference in duration between
spontaneous smiles and deliberately posed smiling. Frank & his colleagues (1993)
further confirmed this difference in duration, examining Duchenne smiles and non-
Duchenne smiles shown in a sample of people who either just watched a pleasant
film, or who described their feelings as they watched a pleasant film. They found that
there was less variability in the duration of Duchenne smiling, and most were, as
predicted, between ½ and 4 seconds.
Ekman & Friesen (1982) observed another difference in timing between
spontaneous and deliberate expressions. In deliberate expressions the onset is often
abrupt, the apex (moments of maximum contraction) held too long, and the offset
(the period from apex to the disappearance of the expression) is either abrupt or in
other ways appears irregular rather than smooth. Frank et al. (1993) confirmed these
observations.

COHESION
The face in deception has been studied more comprehensively than either the voice
or the body has (Ekman, 2005). Nonetheless, we know that there are important clues
to deception in these communication channels as well (Ekman et al., 1991). Like the
face, the voice is part of the affect system that is incorporated into the emotional
experience. When women lied about their feelings, most of them showed an increase
in their vocal pitch. This finding has been reported by other researchers as well
(DePaulo, Lindsey, & Malone, 2003) and the words themselves provide important
clues that a person may be lying. It would be a mistake not to scrutinize very carefully
what people say or what items they agree to on a psychological inventory. Some
verbal clues are topic specific, that is, they are useful if they are not part of the
person’s usual behavioral repertoire but instead appear just when a specific topic is
discussed. Hesitations, changes in emphasis, speech errors and indirect or distancing
language (e.g. President Clinton referring to his office aide as ‘‘that woman’’) are all
topic specific clues. Other clues stand on their own, such as slips of the tongue,
implausible statements, contradictions between what is said at different times and
statements that can be incontrovertibly contradicted by other facts. Comparing what

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DOI: 10.1002/bsl
 Involuntary behavior and deception 683

a person says with the sound of the voice, the expression on the face, gesture and
posture is of critical importance.
Some aspects of the body may relate to felt emotion, but other kinds of gesture,
such as emblems, are culturally variable. Some of the kinds of hand movement
studied include illustrators, which accompany speech, manipulators, in which people
touch themselves, and emblems, which are substitutes for words and vary from
culture to culture. Gestural slips, the equivalent of slips of the tongue, do occur in
some people and are valuable sources of concealed information. Because these are
typically brief, and only a fragment of the total gesture, as with facial micro
expressions, most people will not see them unless they are alerted to this
phenomenon. Even when they see a gestural slip, unless they know the vocabulary of
emblems (Ekman & Friesen, 1969b), they will not know what has been signaled.
(Emblems are culture specific, just as language is, with emblems in one language
group totally missing or having another meaning in another language setting.)
Gestures by themselves can be important; even more important may be changes in
the frequency or tempo of gestures (DePaulo et al., 2003). This section is titled
‘‘Cohesion’’ to reflect the necessity of considering the whole person, the context in
which they are speaking, their usual manner or expression, the internal consistency
of this behavior, and any deviations from their usual manner or behavior. Most
people are unable to make this kind of assessment, but some can. We (Ekman &
O’Sullivan, 1991; Ekman, O’Sullivan, & Frank, 1999) have identified five different
groups of highly accurate lie detectors, one of which was a group of highly moti-
vated forensic psychologists. Recently, O’Sullivan identified another group of
highly accurate forensic psychiatrists. O’Sullivan & Ekman (2005) are studying
another group of highly accurate human lie detectors discovered after testing over
14,000 people. In addition to exceptional motivation to be good at the task, the other
characteristic the expert lie detectors share is a nuanced assessment of many aspects
of the people they are judging.
In this report, we have reviewed evidence, which we believe is compelling, that
there are clear differences in the morphology, timing, symmetry and cohesion
between spontaneous (felt) and deliberate (feigned) facial expressions of emotion.
This information can be used by clinicians to discriminate truthful and untruthful
accounts of illness or injury. Our findings, however, are based on the analysis of high
stakes lies, told in the laboratory, with very little preparation. In the real world,
malingerers may be so practiced in their lies that the leakage one sees in high stakes
laboratory lies or even unrehearsed real life lies may not occur as frequently.
Alternatively, the lie, having been told so frequently, is believed or almost believed by
the teller. Although the signs of uncontrolled emotion may be more difficult to detect
in these circumstances, it is not impossible. The clinician can use unexpected
questions to provoke unpracticed responses and concomitant, spontaneous
emotion, can probe for the cause of missing emotion (e.g. belle indifference), or
evaluate further inappropriate emotion, such as the smirk of the liar as he or she
experiences what Ekman (2001) has called ‘‘duping delight.’’ (The liar or malingerer
may experience real enjoyment, believing he or she is ‘‘putting one over’’ on the
interviewer.) The lack of cohesion between the emotion shown or leaked and the
discussion being held concerning illness or injury suggests further evaluation.
The clinician who deals with malingerers has another advantage—experience.
Having interacted with many people about their illness or injury, the thoughtful,

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684 P. Ekman and M. O’Sullivan

self-observant clinician may have developed templates for lying and truthful clients
within his or her setting. The addition of the behavioral clues to deception that we
have reviewed here, as a way to understand the differences in the templates, should
enhance the accuracy of these distinctions. Awareness of the degree of deliberateness
or consciousness of the malingering will also give direction to the kinds of question
and the ways in which the questions should be asked. Undermining repression,
denial or misperception involves different techniques than inciting the emotions of a
deliberate liar.
Involuntary activation of the facial muscles may occur for reasons other than
intention to deceive. Individuals may experience more than a single emotion, may be
uncertain, or may not wish to express a particular emotion in a particular situation.
Evidence of a movement’s being voluntary rather than involuntary must be evaluated
by the clinician. Many practitioners often accept too uncritically their observations of
others as ‘‘instinct’’ or ‘‘gut reaction.’’ This manuscript suggests some of the kinds of
behavioral change they may be attending to, often without conscious awareness.
Having been made aware of some of these nuances, the practitioner can better
evaluate them, as well as his or her reactions to them.

CONCLUSION

The complexity of discerning truth was prophetically suggested by Ekman & Friesen,
who wrote, in 1969(a),
‘‘. . . the face is equipped to lie the most and leak the most, and thus can be a very
confusing source of information during deception. . . . [A person] can get away with and
best perpetrate deception through his face. Although he must monitor quickly and work
continually to inhibit this fast responsive system, he . . . is usually well practiced in the
display rules for modulating facial affects. . . . [T]he face is the major site for lies of
commission [through macro expressions, which are large in scope and of sufficient
duration to be readily seen]. . . . [Most people will ignore or disregard such] important
sources of information as micro displays and the rough edges on the simulated display.
. . . [O]ne would expect the usual observer of the face typically to be misled. One would
expect the keen observer, on the other hand, to receive contradictory information from
facial cues: simulated messages, micro leakage of information which contradicts the
simulations, and deception clues of squelched displays and improperly performed
simulations’’ (pp. 98–99).

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