Facial expressions and verbal cues to deception (Interesting info on McCain)

http://deception.crimepsychblog.com/

Posted: 26 Sep 2008 11:00 PM CDT

Hat tip to Neuroethics and Law blog for pointing us towards an article in New Scientist (17 Sept) about lies and spin in the current US Presidential campaign.

NS briefly touches on Paul Ekman’s work on microfacial expressions before devoting more attention to the work of David Skillicorn:

Skillicorn has been watching out for verbal “spin”. He has developed an algorithm that evaluates word usage within the text of a conversation or speech to determine when a person “presents themselves or their content in a way that does not necessarily reflect what they know to be true”.

NS then turns to Branka Zei Pollermann, who combines voice and facial analysis:

“The voice analysis profile for McCain looks very much like someone who is clinically depressed,” says Pollermann… uses auditory analysis software to map seven parameters of a person’s speech, including pitch modulation, volume and fluency, to create a voice profile. She then compares that profile with the speaker’s facial expressions, using as a guide a set of facial expressions mapped out by Ekman, called the Facial Action Coding System, to develop an overall picture of how they express themselves.

This story prompted quite a flurry of comments on the website (some of which are worth reading!).

Skillicorn has posted more about his research and its theoretical basis (James Pennebaker’s LIWC technique - pdf here) at his blog Finding Bad Guys in Data.

and now he can't do anything right! I'd be damn depressed too!

without appropriate testing). Let's just say a whole lot of vaguely disturbing stuff suddenly fell into place for me when I considered this possibility.

McCain is very transparent in his body language. There are sure to be experts around the world watching this, he is very scary more so than Bush.