Research warns us never to trust a person by their face

Face value is not a good thing anymore, says research.

It’s so common among people to say things like, ‘He/She looks like a good person’ or ‘ I don’t think this person can cheat’.

Such judgements passed on people’s body language and facial expressions, could actually get us manipulated and fooled into being cheated by them.

This image has been used for illustrative purpose.

According to a study, some businesses are even working on technology to determine customer satisfaction through facial expressions.

"The question we really asked is: 'Can we truly detect emotion from facial articulations?' And the basic conclusion is, no, you can't," said study researcher Aleix Martinez from Ohio State University in the US.

For the findings, the researchers focused on building computer algorithms that analyse facial expressions.

"Everyone makes different facial expressions based on context and cultural background," Martinez said.

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"And it's important to realize that not everyone who smiles is happy. Not everyone who is happy smiles. I would even go to the extreme of saying most people who do not smile are not necessarily unhappy," Martinez added.

It is also true, that sometimes, people smile out of an obligation to the social norms, the researchers said.

After analysing data about facial expressions and emotion, the research team concluded that it takes more than expressions to correctly detect emotion.

"What we showed is that when you experience emotion, your brain releases peptides -- mostly hormones -- that change the blood flow and blood composition, and because the face is inundated with these peptides, it changes colour," Martinez said.

According to the researchers, facial colour, for example, can help provide clues.

In one experiment, the researchers showed study participants a picture cropped to display just a man's face. The man's mouth is open in an apparent scream; his face is bright red.