What do all those NPR people look like?

Here's Gaelan Kelly's mental pictures of Carl Kasell, Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, and other voices in our heads.

Written on your face

I enjoyed last Wednesday's premiere episode of "Lie to Me," a new TV show that incorporates Paul Ekman's work on microexpressions, the fleeting "tells" we all have that reveal our true feelings for a split second before we cover them over with decorum or deceit.

For a recent Workplace Productions program, I taught some of our interactors about microexpressions, and they're using them intentionally in our live case studies and interactive practice. I think microexpressions probably account for the "shimmering" quality - a sense of real thought and emotion, swiftly changing - that the best actors have. For a phenomenal example, see Frank Langella's brilliant work in Frost/Nixon.

Check out "Lie to Me" tonight at 8:00 CST on Fox broadcast, or see episodes online at the link above. Here's more about microexpressions, and here is a nice video about the universality of facial expression of emotion, featuring Paul Ekman.

Face facts

Wonderful article in Discover Magazine this month about facial expressions. Humans, it seems, have a "deep instinct" to mimic faces. When we see an expression on another person, we make the same face, fleetingly -- which helps us understand what that person is feeling. Mirroring facilitates empathy.

I'm trained as an actor, and actors have long understood that assuming a facial expression can create the emotion associated with it. Try it right now. Allow the inner edges of your eyebrows to rise up. Feel the corners of your eyes pull down. In other words, make a sad face. And stay with it for a little. Suddenly feeling sad?

Now look at the kid in the picture. Grin along. Feel better?

As Carl Zimmer says in the Discover piece, "When humans mimic others' faces...we don't just go through the motions. We also go through the emotions."

What implications does this have for communications training? It's fascinating to think.

Photo by CARF, Creative Commons