@StockVault

A study published in PLOS ONE, earlier this week, says that fetuses actually practice their facial expression while in utero.

MedicalXpress noted that the study, which was an eight year project applied Facs, a facial action coding system, used to study adult facial expressions, to the unborn fetuses throughout their development.

The findings were that unborn babies practice making expressions such as crying and smiling as well as pain-like mannerisms, identified by simultaneously furrowing the brow, wrinkling the nose and raising the lip while still in the womb.

The facial images were taken from 4D scans of healthy fetuses.  It was noted that smiling happens earlier on in the pregnancy and more complex expressions such as pain which involves multiple muscles evolve around 36 weeks.

Lead Researcher and senior lecturer in developmental psychology at Durham University, Dr Nadja Reissland, noted, “At the moment there is no link between these expressions and emotions”.

However, researchers do believe that rehearsing these facial expressions in utero allows a new born baby to be able to communicate pain or distress to their parents as soon as they are born, which is a necessary life skill.

To find out more on the study read the entire article.

Photo Courtesy Brian @Stockvault

Want a refresher course on deception?  Below Humintell sums up some of what science has found on lying, liars and microexpressions.

For a brief overview on some Deception and Microexpression Misconceptions read Humintell’s Misconception blogs Part 1 and Part 2 and our Eye Contact Myth blog.

Live Science recently pointed out that if accurate lie-detecting methods can be developed it would have a huge impact on a variety of settings and industries.  As mentioned in many previous blogs, the average person is no better than chance at spotting lies despite what they may think.

Charles Bond and Bella DePaulo’s study, in 2006, found that untrained observers are correct only 54 percent of the time when trying to distinguish between true and false statements.

A 2008 study led by Aldert Vrij, a professor of applied social psychology at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, found similar results with regards to accuracy rates in distinguishing deception.  (to read more studies on lying from Vrij click here).

Other research has noted that even though untrained individuals are able to spot deception only about 50% of the time, we tend to tell lies (small or large) in bout 25% of our social interactions.

Charles Honts, a professor of psychology at Boise State University in Idaho, points out that across societies, there are false beliefs that certain behavioral clues can indicate someone is lying.  For instance, many people think liars shy away from making eye contact, blink a lot or fidget as they speak.

“Lying is an emotionally exhausting and cognitively demanding task,” notes Dr.  David Matsumoto, a psychologist at San Francisco State University and  Humintell’s director, in an  Inside Science article, “When lies are more complicated it is more difficult to lie.”

Recent studies on lying and deception detection have taken a different routes to understanding the art of lying.  Rather than simply observing someone’s behavior, which can introduce all kinds of biases, psychologists and researchers are looking at whether certain interview methods can prompt liars to respond in ways that reveal their deception.

In a similar article Countrytimes.com suggests a new technique in finding lies quickly in the important time just after an incident such as a bombing, or shooting.

In the 1960′s Stanford University did a study on children and their ability to make choices specifically in regards to instant gratification.  It is known as the Marshmallow Experiment.

According to RedOrbit.com  Stanford wanted to know how humans handled delayed gratification but that also raised the question of how other species close to humans would handle the same circumstances.

“Psychologists and economists have found that emotions play a critical role in shaping how humans make complex decisions, such as decisions about saving or investing money. But it was not known if these processes are shared with other animals when they make decisions about their important resources—such as food,” said Alexandra Rosati, from Yale University stated.

In a modified version of Stanford’s “Marshmallow Experiment”, Rosati and Brian Hare from Duke University have studied the same effects on chimpanzees and Bonobo monkeys in Africa, observing the emotional responses of these animals to understand how they make their decisions.

In their experiment the animals were given a choice to eat one piece of food now or three pieces of food later.  Both bonobos and chimps displayed some kind of emotional response after making their choice, either pouting because they had to wait for their food or lamenting their choice of instant gratification.

In another experiment, Hare and Rosati let the animals choose a better tasting treat, but they may have been given a less than favorable treat if their gamble did not pay off. In this experiment, some of the animals even tried to change their minds in the middle of the test once they were given the unsavory treat.

Further research needs to be conducted to understand if these emotional responses can affect the animal’s choices, but Rosati and Hare did say their experiment proved that apes do express emotion when they’re faced with choices. This also adds to the long and ongoing list of similarities between humans and primates.

 What are your thoughts on this experiment? What does it say about the nature of emotion?