Psttt... Your Body Speaks

I bumped into this long-winded infographic about lying a couple of days ago. It is always interesting to understand something that common people don't. Or, maybe I am wrong. Nowadays, people know the science of micro expression well. It is no surprise since most people lie. I don't need statistics to tell me that fact. We all lie to others: our friends, doctors, partners, even our future employees (according to the data below, almost one third of people admitted to lying on their resumes, I wonder how many did not admit?). Lying is so common that people start learning to read between the lines and study micro expression. Our body movements, from a simple gesture to the dilation of pupils, speak a thousand words.

In my opinion, the advance knowledge of micro expression is a double-edged sword. On the bright side, the ability to understand non-verbal communication benefits people, especially in criminal investigation. Unfortunately, people have grown so accustomed to lies that some of them are trained to be great 'actors'. In addition, micro expression analysis is not always right. Sometimes it may cause a person  being wrongly accused. Quoting an FBI profiler, "there are no standardized 'tells' that prove you're being lied to".

Socrates once said "true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing". The science of micro expression is vast. There might be things we don't know yet. Therefore, besides relying on micro expression analysis, I believe we need to take other factors into considerations before making decisions.

Browse more data visualization.