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What are microexpressions? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuffworks dot Com? Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. Welcome people, and this
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Speaker 1: is stuff you should have And I'm about to tell
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Speaker 1: Chuck if you guys should listen to this. Chuck, did
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Speaker 1: you know there's a theory that there are two kinds
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Speaker 1: of learning. Spill it. So there's one called cognitive learning,
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Speaker 1: which book learning where you like, you read, you know,
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Speaker 1: an article, and you read it again and again and
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Speaker 1: you try to like make connections and then street smarts.
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Speaker 1: That's actually yeah, that kind of would fall into the
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Speaker 1: other category, which is called intuitive learning. Uh And apparently yeah,
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Speaker 1: some people have more of one than the other. Ultimately,
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Speaker 1: we would all under this theory of learning, UM do
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Speaker 1: both simultaneously. UM. So, so you're reading a book and
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Speaker 1: you're you're taking in knowledge, that's cognitive learning. Intuitive learning
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Speaker 1: is um where basically we're picking up cues unconsciously from
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Speaker 1: our environment around us, and we're learning from that. So
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Speaker 1: what you would call instinct or gut feeling, it would
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Speaker 1: be the result of in basically an un consciously processed
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Speaker 1: evaluation of you know, some stimuli in the environment. So
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Speaker 1: street smarts, street smarts, it is yea. And part of that,
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Speaker 1: Chuck actually is, um, We're well, we're about to talk
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Speaker 1: about micro expressions. So I know you've heard of them,
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Speaker 1: but that's part of this, these unconscious cues and information
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Speaker 1: that we pick up without knowing about it, which would
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Speaker 1: make it unconscious. As I said, I really like this
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Speaker 1: article very good too. It was written by Tom Schaft
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Speaker 1: of Right BFF. So, Josh, we're gonna talk about micro expressions,
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Speaker 1: which are in the face. We have to talk about
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Speaker 1: the expressions you can make facial expressions, the broad plain
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Speaker 1: ones that we see, right, So yeah, Chuck, is I
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Speaker 1: understand there's UM seven universal facial expressions right, yes, quickly.
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Speaker 1: They are happiness, sadness, fear, anger, discussed, surprise, and contempt.
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Speaker 1: And what was the name of the guy who traveled
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Speaker 1: the world studying these Ekman, Yeah, yeah, he he went
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Speaker 1: around the world to a bunch of disparate cultures, UM
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Speaker 1: all over the place and studied UM facial movements and
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Speaker 1: found that those seven are universal. Right. He was trying
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Speaker 1: to basically get to the root of whether or not, um,
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Speaker 1: it's a learned thing or not. And I thought, I
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Speaker 1: love this man. I thought it was so cool that
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Speaker 1: he could go to like the furthest reaches of a
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Speaker 1: borneo and they perhaps might make the same contempt face
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Speaker 1: as I do. Yeah, or discussed or discussed I could
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Speaker 1: see smiling fear. That kind of thing is universal. But
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Speaker 1: that's kind of strange because that suggests that those are
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Speaker 1: universal feelings then, right, Yeah, very cool. Okay, So basically
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Speaker 1: Eckman documented all of these uh these of in universal
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Speaker 1: facial expressions, but that wasn't enough right now, He and
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Speaker 1: a guy named W. V. Freezing actually mapped out the
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Speaker 1: muscles that create facial expressions and what they came up
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Speaker 1: with is the Facial Action Coding System, which sounds like
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Speaker 1: it should be like on the front of a comic
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Speaker 1: book with a fist punching out. Um. And what the
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Speaker 1: f a CS does is it measures the movements of
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Speaker 1: facial muscles and expresses them in action union units. Yeah. So, um,
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Speaker 1: a raised eyebrow is a U one, right, And it
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Speaker 1: also denotes whether or not the this movement was voluntary
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Speaker 1: or involuntary, and it also measures intensity, So like a smile,
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Speaker 1: the strength of a smile is measured in six degrees um.
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Speaker 1: And so you pop all this stuff together and um,
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Speaker 1: you you apply to our knowledge of the seven universal expressions,
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Speaker 1: and you can say just by analysis of these facial
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Speaker 1: muscles exactly what emotion is going on. It's so cool.
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Speaker 1: It is very cool, uh and conceivably useful. There's a
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Speaker 1: stuff called facial scan and facial recognition systems, and right
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Speaker 1: now as it stands, there kind of hit or miss.
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Speaker 1: They tried one in in Logan Airport in Boston, UM
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Speaker 1: and it was like sixty accurate, which isn't enough because
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Speaker 1: if you're gonna be stopping people based on you know,
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Speaker 1: their their facial expression, it needs to be a lot
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Speaker 1: higher than that. Were they studying micro expressions or okay? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but also they they their software out there that can
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Speaker 1: look for fugitives in a crowd, um based on the
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Speaker 1: f A C s and what what what Aikeman and
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Speaker 1: Freezing came up with? But yes, no, the one at
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Speaker 1: Logan Airport, not micro expression. That's that's another one that
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Speaker 1: I think FEMA, no Homeland Security, Yeah, t s A
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Speaker 1: is is using. It's like a trailer and you walk through,
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Speaker 1: and like, I think they show you stuff that's supposed
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Speaker 1: to create like a facial um or micro EXPRESSI and
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Speaker 1: if you're uncomfortable. Uh, and I don't think it's in
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Speaker 1: use commercially yet. I think if they were smart, they
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Speaker 1: would hire my wife. Oh is she good at that?
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Speaker 1: Oh she is. Not only does she have a keen
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Speaker 1: gut instinct on things, which is pretty accurate, I must say,
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Speaker 1: but uh, yeah, she can read body language and facial
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Speaker 1: expressions like nobody's business. Well, if she can read micro expressions,
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Speaker 1: that would make her um part of just ten percent
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Speaker 1: in estimated ten percent of people who can pick up
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Speaker 1: on micro expressions when when they're seeing when they're shown them. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I would say that's her for sure. Yeah. I cannot
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Speaker 1: fool her ever. Okay, so Chuck, let's we've got facial
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Speaker 1: expressions down and we know that not everybody can consciously
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Speaker 1: pick up on um micro expressions. What are micro expressions? Well,
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Speaker 1: it's uh, basically it's not one thing, but it's it's
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Speaker 1: super fast, uh, sometimes as fast as seconds, and it's
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Speaker 1: just a really really quick facial cue that like you said,
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Speaker 1: not many people been noticed sometimes, right, But we're still
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Speaker 1: again we're picking it up on an unconscious level. So
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Speaker 1: the information is in there right right. Um, So when
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Speaker 1: you are talking to uh, some just kind of a
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Speaker 1: slimy guy and you're getting him a slimy impression from him,
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Speaker 1: you're not quite sure why because he's smiling at you
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Speaker 1: like I am now exactly. But see right there, right there,
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Speaker 1: I just saw that look of contempt. So now I
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Speaker 1: don't trust you, but I'm not quite sure why, which
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Speaker 1: I think in that, because facial expressions are generally considered, um,
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Speaker 1: a revelation of the real emotion that's going on, um,
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Speaker 1: that it lends itself to the idea that you should
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Speaker 1: trust your instincts. If you get a bad feeling from somebody,
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Speaker 1: run away or knife them or do something that could
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Speaker 1: just just listen to like their Plaine expression, right, that
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Speaker 1: could be the micro expression. If you've ever had that
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Speaker 1: feeling like, I don't know what it is about that guy,
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Speaker 1: but something about him that's you may be picking up
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Speaker 1: on very valid micro expressions. And again they're fast and
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Speaker 1: second and most people can't pick them up. But that
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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they are insignificant, I guess, is my point. No,
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Speaker 1: they're very significant. Uh not everybody UM is as a
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Speaker 1: tune to faces as your wife Emily, as though you know, yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: there's actually a condition, a medical condition. Yes, it's prazo
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Speaker 1: pagnosia a k A recognition impairment or for just the
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Speaker 1: ultimate l people us face blindness. And basically this is
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Speaker 1: it's an actual medical condition. They're not entirely certain what
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Speaker 1: causes it, but they've seen it. People have been born
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Speaker 1: with it, UM, and they've seen it as the result
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Speaker 1: of stroke or brain damage from a car accident, right chuck, UM.
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Speaker 1: And what they do know is that there is some
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Speaker 1: sort of impairment in the physic form gyrus, which is
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Speaker 1: located in the temporal lobe, and this is the area
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Speaker 1: of the brain that's in charge of processing visual information
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Speaker 1: of faces. It's that specialized just has to do with
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Speaker 1: the faces. So people who UM have face blindness UM
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Speaker 1: actually have been shown under m r I scans to
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Speaker 1: this area doesn't activate. It's not working, so they can't
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Speaker 1: tell if someone is pleased or displeased by looking at
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Speaker 1: their face, Like they don't understand what a frown or
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Speaker 1: smile means. No, no, no, they'll get that. They'll get that,
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Speaker 1: and apparently I was. It was a terrible segue. They can.
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Speaker 1: They can still they're looking at your face and they
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Speaker 1: can see if you're smiling or frowning. What what they
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Speaker 1: don't do is make a memory of your face. So, Chuck,
8:35
Speaker 1: how many times have we seen each other since we
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Speaker 1: first met one? Too many? Chuck? Thousands of times? Let's
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Speaker 1: say thousands. Sure, if one of us had face blindness,
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Speaker 1: it would be like seeing the other one for the
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Speaker 1: first time right now. Oh, as in, they wouldn't reckon
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Speaker 1: like I would say, I don't know who this person is. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean like I would say, it's me Josh. But
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Speaker 1: you wouldn't know for certain because you can't recall a memory,
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Speaker 1: a visual memory of my face, even though I saw
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Speaker 1: you yesterday or earlier in the hall. I'm a total
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Speaker 1: stranger to you. So of course this makes life kind
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Speaker 1: of hard for people with face blindness. Um, Like, for example,
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Speaker 1: a television show or a movie, try keeping up with that,
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Speaker 1: Like every time you see the main the main character again,
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Speaker 1: it's like, where is this guy coming from? Right? She'd
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Speaker 1: be watching your magnum p I And every every episode
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Speaker 1: you think, who was this handsome mustache guy in the
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Speaker 1: Ferrari I would, but the thought of not being able
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Speaker 1: to keep up with magnum p I, it's a hellish thought. Um,
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Speaker 1: I would never wish that on you. So, but that's
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Speaker 1: just that's just movies and TV. Let's talk about real life. UM,
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Speaker 1: they're tricks that people with face blindness have come up with,
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Speaker 1: like um every morning name tags. Name tags would work, sure,
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Speaker 1: but at the same time, how do you know that
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Speaker 1: people aren't playing practical jokes on you? Like the movie Memento.
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Speaker 1: I love that movie. What a great movie. I'm actually
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go watch that after this. Now. One trick
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Speaker 1: that people do at work, UM, when they have face
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Speaker 1: blindnesses go around and write down They'll you can look
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Speaker 1: at the name tag on the on the cubicle, and
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Speaker 1: then you write down with that person is wearing, and
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Speaker 1: then you can kind of maybe study it or access
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Speaker 1: it when you when you need to, when you're talking
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Speaker 1: to somebody. I have a feeling that people who work
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Speaker 1: with people with actual face blindness are probably fairly forgiving
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Speaker 1: because other than that, there's no other disorder, right, it's
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Speaker 1: I don't know who you are. With family members, you'll
10:27
Speaker 1: they'll often create UM like a safe word like a password.
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Speaker 1: So somebody says, hey, it's dad. You know I need uh,
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Speaker 1: I need to borrow five hundred bucks. Um. He'll also
10:38
Speaker 1: say like Geronimo or Apache or you know something trigger
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Speaker 1: pickle Eskimo, something like that. So you know that it's
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Speaker 1: actually that right, that makes sense? It is. But I mean,
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Speaker 1: do you know of any more like interesting disorders than that.
10:54
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good one. That's right out there with
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Speaker 1: alien hand syndrome, I agree, or jerusale of syndrome, which
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Speaker 1: we'll get to eventually, I'm sure. Can we talk about
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Speaker 1: Alex Rodriguez. I'm so proud of you right now, Chuck.
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Speaker 1: I'm wing because you came up with this year wonderful man.
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Speaker 1: Look at me, little me making it happen. Dr Ekman,
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Speaker 1: who is the master from what I can tell at
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Speaker 1: micro expressions. He uh as everyone knows by now probably
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Speaker 1: in the sports world. Uh. Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez recently
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Speaker 1: came out that he uh not came out, but he
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Speaker 1: revealed that he used steroids for a couple of years,
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Speaker 1: and he famously had an interview with Katie Kuric before
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Speaker 1: that that we absolutely said he did not, and that
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Speaker 1: he never saw him in the clubhouse and he didn't
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Speaker 1: know much about them, and so good. Dr ekmun Um
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Speaker 1: recently as last week, actually reviewed his videotape of this
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Speaker 1: Currik interview and picked up on three micro expressions that
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Speaker 1: indicated that he was lying. One was a guest dural slip,
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Speaker 1: which is when one of your shoulders raises slightly. So
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Speaker 1: it's just a micro expression, obviously, so it's not something
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Speaker 1: and this isn't even on the face, but his shoulder
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Speaker 1: raised slightly quite a few times in the interview when
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Speaker 1: she was asking him, you know, blunt questions, and he
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Speaker 1: was giving firm denials, and he said that it does
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Speaker 1: not that kind of expression does not line up with
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Speaker 1: firm denials. People that are firmly denying something do not
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Speaker 1: do the guestral slip. One was unilateral contempt. I like
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Speaker 1: this one. He said that Rodriguez would raise the corner
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Speaker 1: of his lip just slightly and that indicates arrogance or
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Speaker 1: a feeling of superiority. And he said he did this
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Speaker 1: a lot, and he doesn't know if this might just
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Speaker 1: be a trait that he has. Maybe he thinks he's
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Speaker 1: better than everyone else. I don't know, but he says
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Speaker 1: it definitely doesn't fit with what he was saying about,
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Speaker 1: you know, being humbled with the steroid use. And interestingly,
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Speaker 1: it's called unilateral because it's the only emotion with the
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Speaker 1: corresponding facial expression that occurs just on one side of
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Speaker 1: the face. Everything else anger, surprise, fear, sadness, or biladder
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Speaker 1: also both sides of your face would react. Yes, So
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Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting. And the last one was
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Speaker 1: micro fear, and she pointedly asked him if he had
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Speaker 1: ever been tempted to use illegal drugs. He answered with
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Speaker 1: a simple no, And along with that no was a
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Speaker 1: micro fear expression, which was basically the horizontal stretching of
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Speaker 1: the lips, and he said that basically he looked like
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Speaker 1: he was lying, because it's either fear or a fear
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Speaker 1: being caught when you make this expression, or surprise too.
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Speaker 1: Aren't fear and surprise often confused? Yes, indeed, which is
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Speaker 1: actually one of the problems with searching for micro expressions.
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Speaker 1: People with social anxiety have shown to um launch into
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Speaker 1: an anxiety attack when they're confronted with micro expressions of
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Speaker 1: surprise or fear because they mistake the surprise look for
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Speaker 1: fear and it's a micro expression. They're already socially anxious
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Speaker 1: that as it is, so all of a sudden there
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Speaker 1: guts telling him something and interesting, there you go. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: well he had one more little one with so I
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Speaker 1: thought was the best. And at the at the end
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Speaker 1: of the interview, he flatly denied taking trucks, and he
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Speaker 1: said that he actually slightly nodded his head in the
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Speaker 1: affirmative as he was saying that, which, there you have it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you can't pull one by Paul Eckman. No, no, I
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Speaker 1: would not want to be a rod and sit in
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Speaker 1: front of him and try and tell the truth. So
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Speaker 1: that's micro expressions, Yes, it is, and there's a lot
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Speaker 1: more to it. Um. I think anybody would be wise
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Speaker 1: to go on to our site and read what are
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Speaker 1: micro expressions? Is this pretty in depth explanation of facial
14:30
Speaker 1: expressions in the whole shabank? So that's interesting. You can
14:33
Speaker 1: look that up and chuck, is it is it? Listener
14:36
Speaker 1: mail time? Not quite? Oh no, what we need to
14:39
Speaker 1: give a little shout out to our new blog which
14:42
Speaker 1: is on our website. It's called stuff You should know.
14:44
Speaker 1: You can find out how stuff works dot com and
14:46
Speaker 1: Josh and I post once a day each little interesting
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Speaker 1: news items two bits than uh. We want to engage
14:52
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know nation, get people talking. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and you can get to it on the homepage how
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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com on the right hand side and
15:00
Speaker 1: without further ado, he chimes says, listener mail times you ready, Josh,
15:08
Speaker 1: I was born ready. This is a good one. This
15:10
Speaker 1: came to us from a writer named Lee, and that
15:12
Speaker 1: would be the female Lee l E E. And Lee
15:16
Speaker 1: heard us talk about the one guy who wrote in
15:18
Speaker 1: talking about that he was possessed by the god Horace,
15:22
Speaker 1: and she thought we were very accepting of that notion
15:24
Speaker 1: that sure, who knows, you know, anything could happen. So
15:27
Speaker 1: she wrote this about her daughter. She says she has
15:30
Speaker 1: an attractive daughter, very intelligent, lovely and outgoing, and in
15:34
Speaker 1: high school, her daughter was only attracted to gay men
15:38
Speaker 1: one after the other. A lot of times they were
15:41
Speaker 1: not out with their sexuality. Sometimes they didn't even know
15:44
Speaker 1: it yet. But she had a terrible, terrible time falling
15:47
Speaker 1: in love with and being mistreated by gay men because
15:51
Speaker 1: they clearly could not return the love. So um she
15:56
Speaker 1: was very frustrated by this. She took her daughter to
15:58
Speaker 1: a card reader. And apparently this card reader said, the
16:04
Speaker 1: reason that she cannot get over these falling in love
16:06
Speaker 1: with gay men is because she was possessed. Her spirit
16:10
Speaker 1: was possessed by a gay man named Jerome from the
16:14
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. And this is what the card reader said.
16:17
Speaker 1: She said, Jerome is running the show. And the kid
16:20
Speaker 1: basically says, I don't like this. I'd like to get
16:22
Speaker 1: rid of this spiritual possession. Jerome's kind of baggage, baggage.
16:26
Speaker 1: And so the card reader, she said, quote without any
16:30
Speaker 1: fancy pantsy ceremony, said that Jerome was gone and she
16:34
Speaker 1: got rid of him. And the lady said after that
16:36
Speaker 1: her daughter felt different, never fell in love with a
16:39
Speaker 1: gay man again, had healthy relationships. And I just thought
16:42
Speaker 1: this was real interesting, is very interesting. And as we
16:46
Speaker 1: are always our motto is who knows to each his
16:49
Speaker 1: own or her own? Who knows what's going on out
16:52
Speaker 1: there in the wacky universe? Just she could have been
16:54
Speaker 1: possessed by a gay man named Jerome from the eighteen hundreds. Well,
16:59
Speaker 1: thank you Lee and your daughter and Jerome as well. Um,
17:02
Speaker 1: And if you have a really cool story to share
17:05
Speaker 1: with us, or you just want to say Hi no
17:07
Speaker 1: hi kus uh. Send an email to a stuff podcast
17:12
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com For more on this
17:18
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