SUBTEXTHe had female student nurses watch various films. Some of
the films were pleasant, while others were horrifying medical films
in which a burn victim suffered in agony. The nurses were then
asked to describe a disturbing film to an interviewer, but to do
so dishonestly, to lie about it and say it was enjoyable. They
were also asked to describe an innocuous film as distressing.
The purpose of the experiment was to discover whether the
interviewer could read anything in the nurses' expressions that
would be a clue to lying. Hidden videotape cameras documented
the interviews. Nurses were chosen because they were highly moti-
vated to learn how to avoid reacting to body mutilation.
Some nurses were good at lying, some lied imperfectly, and
some couldn't lie at all. The poor liars showed fewer of the gestures
that usually accompany speech—pointing, drawing pictures in
the air, indicating direction and size. Instead they licked their
lips, rubbed their eyes, and made nervous motions.
Good liars could fake innocence, anger, or joy, but they still
didn't know just when to make these emotions appear on their
faces or how long to keep them there and when to let them go.
Distress, worry, or grief often troubled the lying nurses, and
these emotions could be detected by the lifting of just the inner
part of the eyebrows. The result is a pair of slanting eyebrows
raised at the center, a sort of inverted V. The upper eyelids were
also pulled up. This combination of movements can only be sup-
pressed voluntarily by one in ten people. In most cases it occurs
in spite of efforts to conceal the emotions.
THE TELLTALE SMILE
A clue to lying can come from the way emotions leak through
expressions or gestures. The simplest facial expression is a smile,