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August 10, 2009

How do you spot a liar?Expressions Can Convey What Words Do Not...
By Amber Hunt
Free Press Staff Writer

Kwame Kilpatrick sits before the judge, his hands clasped in a triangle beneath his chin and his finger tops pressed to his lips.

It's a photo snapped during one of the many court hearings the ex-Detroit mayor appeared at during the text message scandal. And, according to an expert in body language and facial expressions -- who also is the inspiration behind the TV show "Lie to Me" -- it was a clue that Kilpatrick wasn't telling the whole truth.

As Kilpatrick faces new allegations that he had yet another affair -- this time with the federal monitor overseeing the city's police department -- Fox is gearing up for its second season of the TV show.

Michigan law-enforcement officials say there is some fact to go along with the show's fiction.

"There's a lot of behavioral clues in body language," said Detective Sgt. Eric Schroeder of the Michigan State Police. "People say how they feel about a lot of things without using words."

Doctor says Fox TV show blurs the facts

The suspect speaks firmly. His voice does not falter. He had nothing to do with the crime, he insists.

Then, in a move so subtle nearly everyone in the room fails to see it, the corner of his mouth twitches.

"You're lying," announces Dr. Cal Lightman. And 30 minutes later, the case is solved.

Such is the premise of "Lie to Me," the latest hit in the parade of law-enforcement TV shows. The show begins its second season in September on Fox.

Of course, that's just television, said Dr. Paul Ekman, a psychologist whose groundbreaking studies in human emotion -- as portrayed in facial expressions -- have earned him the title of "human lie detector" and served as the real-life inspiration for Lightman.

But the show, which aims to highlight the mix of science and subjectivity that goes into spotting liars in police interrogations, has a tendency to blur the lines of fact and fiction. Part of the effect is accomplished by using real photos of famous people to illustrate the array of emotions people express.

An image of Kilpatrick with his fingers pressed to his lips that flashes at the beginning of the show was used to show someone hushing himself.

Other famous people -- including former Vice President Dick Cheney, disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and prostitute-paying actor Hugh Grant -- also have been used to illustrate scorn, shame and, well, more shame.

Just as the case with the popular "CSI" shows with forensic investigators, crimes involving liars are never neatly tied up the way "Lie to Me" depicts. But the show does highlight something that many law-enforcement series don't, Schroeder said: the oh-so-crucial interviewing process.

"You have to go in there and pay attention to all of the little things -- not just what they're saying, but how they're saying it -- to narrow down the suspect pool," Schroeder said.

Small actions hold meaning
Ekman, a clinical psychiatrist based in San Francisco, founded the Paul Ekman Group LLC, a company that produces training devices "relevant to emotional skills," according to his Web site, www.paulekman.com. The group works with law-enforcement agents worldwide.

Ekman is considered the trailblazer when it comes to understanding fleeting expressions, or "micro expressions."

Notice a slight downward turn in the corners of the lips, and you're likely seeing sadness. A subtle upward twitch in a shoulder could indicate uncertainty. And contrary to popular belief, steady eye contact is more often an indication of lying than truth-telling.

They're tendencies that Ekman began spotting about 40 years ago when he was asked to evaluate patients hospitalized with psychiatric disorders before they were given weekend passes to go home. "Sometimes such patients killed themselves immediately after release from hospital supervision," said Ekman, who spoke via e-mail while working in London.

He watched films of the clients in slow motion and began recognizing the despair behind their cheery facades, he said.

That sparked several books, including "Telling Lies." To date, Ekman said he has helped train thousands of law-enforcement officers, including those with the FBI, the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration.

Earlier this year, Ekman inspired Lightman, the fictional lead in "Lie to Me," as portrayed by actor Tim Roth.

The show regularly uses photos of famous people, as selected by Ekman, to illustrate the array of emotions that reveal lies. In March, the image of Kilpatrick was used to illustrate self-hushing -- suggesting the former mayor was keeping himself from speaking the whole truth.

Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to perjury months after the photo was snapped and admitted to an illicit affair with his then-chief of staff. Text messages surfaced last week that indicate Kilpatrick had yet another inappropriate relationship, this time with the federal monitor who had been overseeing the Detroit Police Department's compliance with federal mandates put in place after the Free Press revealed police brutality and abuses. The revelation prompted the monitor to resign.

Cops' methods aren't a mystery
In Michigan, would-be cops learn interviewing and interrogation techniques as they work their way through police academy training, Schroeder said.

"Micro-expression, body language -- they're tools in a toolbox," he said.

But those tools could be misinterpreted and misused by law enforcement, said Steven Drizin, a Northwestern University law professor who studies false confessions.

Drizin, who directs the Center on Wrongful Convictions in Chicago, said reading body language might be useful, but "I still don't buy the science of it."

"I worry that it is far more often misused by police officers to make erroneous judgments of a suspect's guilt and could play into public perception that police officers have some mysterious ability to detect truth-tellers from liars," he said.

Ekman said that he worries about that, too.

"Sometimes they show things that are contradicted by my findings, because they think it is very useful for a dramatic point," he said of the TV show.

He wrote a blog each week during the first season of "Lie to Me" titled "CAVEAT," warning that the fictional Lightman solves problems more quickly and with more certainty than is possible in real life.

But Schroeder -- by no means a "Lie to Me" devotee -- said he gives the show credit for focusing on the interrogation process. "Anything that shows someone interrogating a suspect is a good thing," he said. "It doesn't all come down to science. You have to spend time with the suspect."

*****

For Stephen Christopher Harris

"If you're going to be a skilled liar, you need to learn to control your face..."
"Fear Eats the Soul"