chapter 19

Arthur Schopenhauer said “a man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth.” This shows how valuable facial expressions truly are. Facial expressions provide us with information about five main things which are affective state, cognitive activity, temperament, truthfulness and psychopathology. This means that from someone’s face we can potentially figure out how they’re feeling, thinking, some personality traits, if they’re lying and information regarding their mental state. Research shows that facial expressions can show when a specific mental action is occurring. Many professions rely on facial expressions to back up their verbal communication. Teachers for example have “the look” we all know well. Parents tend to have it too, that look that without a word stops you dead in your tracks and tells you everything you need to know. However we’re now learning that we’re capable of training our brains to read faces very well and use that to our advantage. For example, a lawyer could hire someone specifically to pick jurors who will be on their side or lenient to their case. When we naturally read faces we look for certain distinct signs or expressions that send a message to our brain. A good way to look at it is that faces are “windows” into a person. By reading faces we can better judge if what a person is communicating verbally is true and accurate.