Human faces recognized as a cat face by a cat face-detection algorithm. Cat faces recognized as a human face by a human face-detection algorithm.

The facial recognition (human and cat) was done using open source software. (Kittydar and OpenCV).

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In reality there were no electric shocks, and the participant in the other room was a confederate working with Milgram.  The experiment demonstrated people’s willingness to obey authority figures.

However recent attempts to recreate the experiment have come up with different results.  According to an article at Scientific American:[ref]What Milgram’s Shock Experiments Really Mean[/ref]

Contrary to Milgram’s conclusion that people blindly obey authorities to the point of committing evil deeds because we are so susceptible to environmental conditions, I saw in our subjects a great behavioral reluctance and moral disquietude every step of the way.

There are a couple of things to consider:

• In the original experiment only 65% of test subjects continued issuing shocks until the maximum voltage (450 volts)
• The second study only tested six subjects
• You can never truly control every variable in a scientific experiment.  It is quite possible other elements (including the test subject’s background) played a role.

Even with these considerations, the results are definitely interesting.

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Which means warm weather, margaritas, and lazy summer afternoons.  To help fill in the gaps, here is a list of classic readings for every social engineer.

Nonverbal Communication

Everyone agrees that nonverbal communication plays a huge role in social engineering.  Here are some of the original texts that changed the field of nonverbal communication.

Silent Messages

By: Dr. Albert Mehrabian

Chances are you’ve probably heard someone say something like “words are only 7% of the communication.”  Dr. Albert Mehrabian was the one who did the study that is often quoted, and in many cases, misinterpreted.  His book, Silent Messages, explains what the widespread misrepresentation of the Mehrabian Myth.

Emotions Revealed

By: Dr. Paul Ekman

If you’ve seen the TV show Lie to Me* then you’re familiar with the work of Dr. Paul Ekman.  Unfortunately watching the TV show won’t help you become better at assessing deception.  Although if you want to learn the science behind facial expressions, while getting better at recognizing expressions of emotion, then add this to your list of summer reading.

What Every Body is Saying

By: Joe Navarro

Joe has written one of (if not) the most popular books on body language.  Whenever I have a friend or family member who asks me how to start learning body language this is the first book I give them.  Joe’s background and experience in the field give him insights that you don’t find many other places.

Persuasion and Influence

What would a reading list be without a couple of books that talk about persuasion and influence?  Below are the two books that people in the industry reference the most.

Influence: Science and Practice

By: Robert Cialdini

This is without a doubt the most referenced book when it comes to the field of persuasion.  If you haven’t already read this book you need to make it the next thing you read.  Stop reading this post and get this book now!

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive

By: Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, and Robert Cialdini

This book makes an excellent companion to the previous book (Influence: Science and Practice).  Where the previous book is more theoretical and academic, this book is all about application.  If you want to see how to apply the principles of persuasion, look no further.

Cognition and Thinking

The better you understand how the human mind works, the better you will be as a social engineer.  Here are a few books to help unlock the mysteries of the mind.

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

By: Gary Klein

This book explains how experts make decisions in time-sensitive situations. Beyond applications for becoming an expert, it also provides a good model for decision making in general.

Memory-Enhancing Techniques for Investigative Interviewing: The Cognitive Interview

By: Dr. R Edward Geiselman, and Ronald Fisher

The cognitive interview is one of the best methods to enhance memory recall, and makes for a great introduction to the techniques of elicitation. I’ve had the opportunity to take training from Dr. Geiselman himself, and can attest to the utility of what he teaches. Unlike the television show Criminal Minds, this is the real stuff.

Your Brain at Work

By: David Rock

One of the biggest problems with academic work is how it applies in the field. This book fixes that by taking the science of the brain and showing how it affects our everyday lives. Plus it gives you some strategies for dealing with the biases and limitations we encounter.

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What is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS)?

The Facial Action Coding System is a scientific system designed to measure facial behaviors.  Facial behaviors include individual facial movements such as pulling the eyebrows up, as well as more general facial activities like turns and tilts of the head.[ref]http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/facs/new_version.jsp[/ref]

How is FACS Used?

FACS can be used for several different things such as:

• Describing expressions of emotion
• Identifying between suicidal and non-suicidal patients[ref]http://www.facscodinggroup.com/about/facs[/ref]
• Predicting the onset and remission of depression [ref]http://www.facscodinggroup.com/about/facs[/ref]
• For computer generated animations[ref]FACSGen 2.0[/ref]

What is the Relationship Between FACS and Facial Expressions?

To understand how FACS and facial expressions relate, you need to know what facial expressions really are.  Facial expressions are the way the face changes as a result of one or more facial movements (or more accurately, facial behaviors.)[ref]What Are Facial Expressions?[/ref]

FACS on the other hand is a system for measuring and describing one or more facial movements.  Since a facial expression is composed of facial movements, FACS is a way to accurately describe the movements in a facial expression.

What is the Relationship Between FACS and Emotions?

This is one area where there is a lot of misinformation floating around the internet.  To understand how FACS and emotions relate, you first need to understand how emotions relate to facial expressions.

There are seven emotional categories that have been scientifically proven to be universally recognizable.[ref]Three Mistakes People Make about the 7 Basic Emotions[/ref]  These universally recognizable emotion categories (called the basic emotions) are associated with specific sets of facial expressions.[ref]People sometimes mistake universally recognized to mean universally experienced.  While the basic emotions are universally experienced, they are not the only ones.  Rather basic emotions are the only universally experienced emotions that are also associated with universally recognized facial expressions.[/ref]

For example expressions of surprise are associated with the following movements:

• The entire eyebrow is pulled up
• The upper eyelids are pulled up
• The mouth is opened

Since the basic emotions are associated with specific facial expressions, FACS can be used to accurately describe these expressions of emotion.

A very common misconception is that FACS is related to reading emotions.  The problem with this is that FACS is just a measurement system, and does not interpret the meaning of the movements.  It’s sort of like saying the purpose of driving a car is to go to the grocery store.  You can use a car to go to the grocery store, but driving in and of itself can be used for several different things (e.g. driving to the movies, going across country, etc.)

Some sources incorrectly assume that FACS includes emotional interpretation.  I suspect this is because they are confusing the FACS manual with the FACS Investigator’s Guide.

The FACS manual is what a FACS coder uses to learn FACS, and as a reference for coding.  The FACS Investigator’s guide contains information such as reliability studies, how FACS compares to other measurement systems, etc.  The FACS Investigator’s guide does briefly mention possible emotional interpretations for specific FACS codings, with this caveat in the preface:

It would be ideal if the person coding facial actions did not think about the possible meaning of the behavior he scores, but focused only on describing appearance. Information about th e meaning of facial behavior has been kept out of the Manual and is mentioned only in this Guide.[ref]The FACS Investigator’s Guide[/ref]

What is the Relationship Between FACS and Microexpressions?

Another common misconception about FACS is in regards to microexpressions.  A microexpression is a brief (no more than 0.5 seconds) display of one of the seven basic emotions.  So a microexpression is really nothing more than a facial expression of emotion.  Granted it is very brief, but it’s still just a facial expression.

So to the relationship between FACS and microexpressions is the same for FACS and facial expressions: FACS can be used to describe the facial expressions that constitute a microexpression, but FACS in and of itself isn’t about microexpressions

Should I Learn FACS?

The question as to whether or not you should learn FACS is really about what you want to do, and the amount of effort you are willing to invest.

If you just want to get better at recognizing emotions, then FACS is probably overkill.  Instead you should consider taking microexpression training.  However if you need to be able to discern fine facial movements, then FACS is the best option.

Another thing to consider is how much time you are willing to invest.  The average person will spend at least 100 hours studying the FACS manual, and then about 12 hours to take the FACS certification.  To compare, microexpression training usually takes about an hour.

So if you want to be better at recognizing emotions, stick with microexpression training.  If however you want to be an expert on the face, then becoming a FACS certified coder is what you need to do.

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1. The Subject is the Headline

One of the first things that people see in pretty much any email software is the subject line.  This means that the subject line fulfills the same role as the headline in advertising: it pulls the reader in.  Here are some things that have worked well in the past:

• State the benefit for opening the email.  Ever wonder why all those spam emails advertise “Get XXX tonite”?  It’s simple: it works.
• Create curiosity by asking question.
• “Break the news”  Studies have shown that advertising in the form of news is read more.  Same goes for phishing emails.

2. Make it Easy to Read

This one actually came from Mike Murray. It’s the idea that certain types of writing are easier to read and understand.  The easier an email is to read, the more likely it is to be persuasive.  So how can you write in a style that’s easier to read?  Copyblogger has some good tips.   Here are a few others:

• Learn Basic (British American Scientific International Commerical) English.  It’s how to communicate in English using only 850 words (for the most part :P)
• Spend some time on the “Simple Wikipedia“
• Check the reading level of your emails with the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

3. Look Legit

Phishing emails that have poor grammar, spelling, etc. just look plain fishy.  Emails that don’t look legitimate are less likely to get clicked.  If you’ve ever seen one of the 419 emails you’ll know exactly why.  Make sure you:

• Use a spell checker (if it make sense)
• Verify all links and images work (if you’re using HTML)
• Look at the message for any “substitution errors” (e.g. “Hello $USER”)

4. Give a Reason to Click

In order for someone to take action you need to give a reason.  The reason can vary, but if you want to increase your chances of success make sure your emails have this element.  Here are some examples:

• Click here for 101 ways to make money now!
• Hey, is this picture really of you?
• You have notifications waiting!

5. Make it Fit

One way to trip suspicion is to send an email that is out of place.  Going back to the 419 scam emails, if Prince Njoku of Nigeria sends you an email asking for help to get money out of the country, it just doesn’t make sense. [ref]Unless of course you were in the business of helping foreign princes funnel money out of the country.[/ref]

Much of this will be situation-specific, so this is one place reconnaissance can be useful.  You may want to consider:

• The environment the target is in:  Are they at work, at home, in the coffee shop?
• How the target reads email: Does their reader support HTML, is it a mobile device?
• Who the target is:  Are they a secretary, a gamer, an IT professional?

Other things you think should be added?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

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1. Focus on emotions, specifically the basic emotions

Quiz question: what is the facial expression of a liar?

It’s a trick question because there is no facial expression for “I’m lying to you”.

This highlights a classic beginner’s mistake: trying to associate an overly-specific meaning to a facial expression.  Even though we can make thousands of different facial expressions, we don’t use them in the same way we do words.  While words can have very specific meanings, facial expressions are more general.

So when reading the face you’ll be better off focusing on emotions rather than trying to figure out the facial expression for “Honest, I didn’t take the last beer from the fridge”.

So what emotions should you focus on?  Well there are seven emotions that have been scientifically demonstrated to be associated with specific facial configurations.[ref]http://www.humintell.com/2010/06/the-seven-basic-emotions-do-you-know-them/[/ref]  These emotions are called basic emotions, and facial expressions of these emotions can be reliably recognized across all cultures worldwide. The seven basic emotions are:

1. Surprise
2. Fear
3. Disgust
4. Contempt
5. Anger
6. Sadness
7. Happiness

It’s important to remember that the seven emotions listed above aren’t the only emotions that are universally experienced, just the ones that have universally recognized expressions.  So if you want to be more accurate at reading facial expressions, focus on recognizing emotions, specifically the basic emotions.

2. Examine the entire face

Facial expressions can involve multiple areas of the face. For example the key movements commonly associated with surprise are:

• The entire eyebrows are pulled up
• The upper eyelids are pulled up
• The jaw drops or is pulled down

Another common mistake is to assume an expression of emotion without actually seeing all of the movements.  If you see the eyebrow raising movement described above, it could be a partial expression of surprise.  However the eyebrows are also raised in fear (and combined with a third eyebrow movement).  Beyond emotional expressions, eyebrow raising is also commonly used to accent parts of speech.

The moral of the story is: to increase your accuracy, look for changes across the entire face.

3. Pay attention to what you don’t see

Recognizing facial expressions of emotion involves looking for movements across the entire face.  Accurately recognizing facial expressions of emotion involves paying attention to what you don’t see as well as what you do.

Consider the expressions of surprise and fear. These two expressions are often confused, and I suspect part of the reason why, is because the movements associated with surprise are essentially a subset of the movements associated with fear. Here are the primary movements associated with each:

As you can see, some of the movements listed above (such as the eyebrows being pulled up) are common to both fear and surprise. However here are the differences:

In Fear, but not Surprise:

• Eyebrows are pulled together
• Lower eyelids are tensed
• Lip corners pulled back

The key is that the differences between expressions of fear and surprise are the movements you don’t see.

4. Don’t forget about emotional blends

Our emotions like our lives, are complex.  Rather than just feeling a single emotion such as sadness or anger, it is not uncommon for people to feel a mix of several different emotions at the same time.

When this happens (feeling multiple emotions at the same time) it is called an emotional blend.  Facial expressions of emotional blends often include movements of each individual basic emotion.  So a person who strongly dislikes wearing a turtle neck and is then made to wear one may experience both disgust and anger, as shown in the picture below:

An expression that includes movements of both anger and disgust (Photo by Lara604)

Since emotional blends can, and often do occur, it’s a good idea to ask yourself whether you are looking at an expression of a single emotion, or  of multiple emotions.

5. Consider what the rest of the body is telling you

To wrap things up, we’ll keep this last one short and to the point.  Basically while the face can be a rich source of nonverbal information, the rest of the body can be just as informative.

It’s a good idea to pay attention to both the face and the body, although this isn’t always possible.  For example the videos from surveillance cameras in small businesses are notorious for providing low resolution footage (with large time gaps.)  In cases like these (accurately) reading the suspect’s facial expressions can be more difficult, and provide less information, than by observing their body language.

So if you can observe both facial expressions and body language, do so.  It will give you a better overall picture.

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Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London have, for the first time, identified the facial expression of anxiety. The facial expression for the emotion of anxiety comprises an environmental scanning look that appears to aid risk assessment.

Per the abstract, researchers presented 8 volunteers with emotional scenarios and had them pose facial expressions. Photographs and videos of the posed expressions were shown to 40 participants. The participants were asked to match the emotional scenarios and to provide a label for the expression. 18 separate participants were then asked to match the labels provided by the first group to the photographs of the posed expressions.

A majority of the participants labeled a posed expression for an ambiguous threat (e.g. seeing a predator’s footprints) as anxiety. The posed expression for an unambiguous threat (e.g. actually seeing the predator) was correlated with the label of fear.

According to the study, the facial expression for anxiety included “eye darts” and “head swivels”. Since “eye darts” and “head swivels” aren’t actual movements, I’m hazarding a guess that they meant turning the head and eyes. You can find the original paper here, and see the movie used in the study here.

I’m sure Paul Ekman,David Matsumoto,and Maggie Pazian can find a lot of things to explore further, but I noticed a few items of interest right off the bat:

1. If you look at the “anxiety expression” in the movie, it includes more than just turning the head and eyes. Notably there is a sucking in of the lower lip (AU 28[ref]Actions units other than AU 28 are also present[/ref]), and the subject appears to lean backward after the scanning (which could be interpreted as a flight response.)
2. I find it interesting that the facial expression is described in terms of multiple distinct movements, yet the second set of participants were only given still photographs. I’d be curious to see the photographs that were used.
3. The researchers did not claim this to be a universally recognized expression. Although they did suggest a threat response as a possible source of motivation.

While this is definitely interesting, remember that it is just one study. There needs to be additional research and scientific inquiry before reaching a conclusion.

UPDATE: Humintell has posted some thoughts on the paper.

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• Humintell has compiled a list of videos with examples of microexpressions, hotspots, gestures, and emotions.
• Here at Social Exploits we’ve been slowly building a library of “interesting faces”. The collection includes various facial expressions of emotion from a variety of cultures. [ref]Many of the images also make good material for practicing FACS coding.[/ref]

If you have anything you’d like to see added to this list, let us know.

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Facial Movements

Before we can even get into what facial expressions are, we have to understand the idea of “facial movements”. A facial movement is the movement of one or more facial muscles. [ref]In the Facial Action Coding System these are called action units (AUs).[/ref] For example the zygomatic major muscles contract to pull the lip corners up and back towards the ear when a person smiles. You can see the contraction of the zygomatic major muscles in the image below.

The lip corners are pulled up by contraction of the zygomatic major muscle

The mapping between facial movements and facial muscles is not one-to-one. Some facial movements involve contraction of two different parts of the same muscle, while others involve contraction of multiple muscles. The muscle that controls the raising of the eyebrows is called the occipitofrontalis (or just frontalis) and the inner portions can be raised independently of the outer portions. Facial expressions of sadness often include raising of just the inner portion of the eyebrows, while expressions of surprise include raising the inner and outer portions of the eyebrows. You can see this in the two images below:

Just the inner corners of the eyebrows have been raised

Both the inner and outer portions of the eyebrows are raised

Facial Expressions

Now that we know what facial movements are, we can focus on understanding what facial expressions are. As we make various facial movements (i.e. contract and relax our facial muscles) the appearance of our faces change. In the image above, as the lip corners are pulled back and up the cheeks will puff up, the mouth will lengthen etc.

Using this idea we can answer “what are facial expressions?” from the perspective of nonverbal communication:

Facial expressions are the observable results of moving one or more facial muscles, or parts thereof.

So facial expressions are the resulting changes in facial appearance due to one or more facial movements. The key to this definition is that a facial expression is relates to what you can observe. This implies that facial expressions are separate from what they are used for.

Now some people might be thinking “whoa, I thought facial expressions communicated emotions?” The answer is that facial expressions can be used to communicate emotions, but they can also be used for other purposes as well. For instance here are three examples of when people might raise their eyebrows:

1. During expressions of surprise
2. To emphasize particular parts of speech
3. As a greeting

In all three cases the eyebrow raising (i.e. the expression) is the same but the intent and purpose behind it differs.

So when you’re reading a person’s nonverbals, realize that their facial expressions may not always communicate what you think they do.

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