Remarkably people in 75 countries believe the top way you can spot a liar is that the person won’t look you in the eye. Contrary to common belief, that’s not true. You are more likely to be able to detect lying by looking at the whole face. People avert their gaze in conversation for many reasons, most of them innocent, according to social psychologist expert Dr. Mark Frank.
Ignore some of the myths detecting lying such as “shifty eyes or sweaty brow” and look for the “cracking” of an expression to briefly display the underlying or true emotion that “leaks” onto the face.”
One of the most common is a micro-expression or “cracking.” That’s when someone is expressing sadness for something then, when pressed, displays a flash of the true, underlying emotions: anger and disgust. That is how he really feels about the situation.
Unlike Ekman and Porter we cannot video the moments in our life to review, frame-by-frame, yet we can be trained to better recognize those flashes of hot emotion someone is attempting to hide. “Ekman reckons your accuracy in detecting an attempt at deception ‘will increase from chance to 70% or better’".
Yet, “the best liars tend to be the least troubled by their dissembling and produce the fewest outward clues," acknowledges Ekman. There are times I’ve wished that I could have had a thermal-imaging or other detection device handy.
Ending on an up note regarding reading faces, your smile helps your mood. It also uplifts those around you and the people with whom they come into contact. Emotion is contagious up to three degrees of separation.