Photo courtesy of Psychology Today.

The Wizards Project was a research project conducted by Drs. Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sulllivan, that studied the ability of people to detect lies.

This research showed that for the average person, being able to detect deception is not an easy task.  Most people can detect deceit only about 50% of the time, which is the statistical equivalent of flipping a coin.

However, the Wizards Project study purported that there is a very small group of people who are extraordinarily adept at detecting deception with more than an 80% accuracy rate.  These individuals were deemed “Truth Wizards”.

According to EurekAlert the study tested about 13,000 individuals using 3 varying tests.  Later sources site that there were 20,000 participants with 50 who were able to claim to be Truth Wizards or natural lie spotters.  Among the wizards are JJ Newberry and Eyes for Lies.

 ”Our wizards are extraordinarily attuned to detecting the nuances of facial expressions, body language and ways of talking and thinking. Some of them can observe a videotape for a few seconds and amazingly they can describe eight details about the person on the tape, “ commented O’Sullivan.

The project is no longer in existence as Maureen O’Sullivan has since passed away and according to the information right now, no one has taken over the project or is continuing new research with such a large scale group on “truth wizards”.

Dr. Matsumoto’s response to the question, Since the passing of Maureen O’Sullivan, what is the status of research into Naturals? Who is doing this work now, and where can we learn the latest research results? is, 

“I don’t really know the status. We offered several times to her estate to help to finalize her final works and consider continuing that work, but have not heard back.”

Dr. O’Sullivan did note in the study’s findings that, “…we found groups of people who are consistently better at spotting deception, although most groups, including police officers, CIA and FBI agents, lawyers, college students and therapists, do little better than chance.  By carefully analyzing the videotapes used in our test, we were able to find many objective behavioral measures that could have been used as clues to deception, but most people did not pick up the signals.”

She also states that facial muscles are not under our conscious control all of the time especially when there are strong feelings involved.  These expressions that flash on and off our face at high speeds and are now labeled microexpressions.  She delineates that the wizards were able to pick up on those fleeting facial expressions more so than the average person.

Dr. Matsumoto’s response to the question, what makes one person better at reading emotional expressions than another, is,

“Practice, experience and one’s natural propensity to read emotions. Some people are born better sensors and perceivers of the world to begin with. It most likely has something to do with one’s genetics, personality and life experience. Also how much a person hones their ability by practicing would have a great impact on reading emotional expressions.”  

The wizards study showed that training for 20 minutes was able to significantly improve a person’s ability to recognize microexpressions, an important key in detecting deception.

To see a short video featuring Maureen O’Sullivan click here.

The victory stance that many athletes take immediately after a win has been found to be a universal gesture for triumph which is the same across cultures.

These new findings purport that triumph is a universal gesture seen in the “victory” stance of an athlete.  The idea of triumph being a universal emotion had its beginnings in Dr.  David Matsumoto’s 2008 study of Olympic athletes, which suggested that expressions of pride and shame are universal and hardwired in humans.

According to PHYS.Org, these new findings due to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior suggest the victory pose signals feelings of triumph, challenging previous research that labeled the expression pride.

 “We found that displays of triumph include different behaviors to those of pride and occur more immediately after a victory or win.  Triumph has its own signature expression that is immediate, automatic and universal across cultures, “ stated Dr. David Matsumoto, professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.

In the new study, which Dr. Matsumoto co-authored with Humintell’s research scientist Dr. Hyi Sung Hwang, they investigated gestures labeled pride and triumph further and noted that gestures previously thought to be pride are more indicative of  a separate  emotion – triumph.  “When we studied pride, there was always something gnawing at me because some of the expressions that were previously labeled pride just didn’t make that much sense to me.”

Their findings suggest not only that triumph is an emotion on its own but that it is a universal emotion as well meaning that it is displayed the same way across cultures.   Dr. Matsumoto goes on to say that expressions of triumph are a declaration of one’s success or performance whereas expressions of pride stem from feeling good about one’s self, which requires time for self-evaluation.

“One of the biggest differences between triumph and pride can be seen in the face,” Matsumoto said. “When someone feels triumphant after a contest or challenge, their face can look quite aggressive. It’s like Michael Phelps’ reaction after winning the 2008 Olympics.   It looks quite different to the small smile we see when someone is showing pride.”

Analysis of the photographs of athletes used in the study revealed that triumph expressions occurred, on average, 4 seconds after the end of a match. Pride expressions occurred, on average, 16 seconds after the end of the match.

ScienceDaily reports that more research could be conducted on triumph as an emotion and that some psychologists believe triumph is a subset of pride, while Matsumoto and Hwang’s latest findings suggest triumph is an emotion in its own right.

Breaking Muscle also commented on these new findings  saying that there has not been much research on triumph in previous studies.  They also have another example of the “victory stance” referred to in this study.

If you want to test this yourself, now is a great opportunity.  Watch the London 2012 Olympics on NBC at nbcolympics.com

A new and interesting video shows an optical illusion that researchers have dubbed the “Flashed Face Distortion Effect”.

How does this work?  

Well, it is quite simple:  by flashing ordinary portraits aligned at the eyes, the human brain begins to compare and exaggerate the differences, causing the faces to seem malformed and hyper exaggerated.   Researcher Matthew Thompson writes,

“ Like many interesting scientific discoveries, this one was an accident. Sean Murphy, an undergraduate student, was working alone in the lab on a set of faces for one of his experiments. He aligned a set of faces at the eyes and started to skim through them. After a few seconds, he noticed that some of the faces began to appear highly deformed and grotesque. He looked at the especially ugly faces individually, but each of them appeared normal or even attractive.“

Click here to view the embedded video.