Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2666 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

Customer Reviews

a good study for those interested in faces
I can see by the review below that if you're looking for a quick route to being the next Darren Brown this book might be less than expected but then I don't think one book will fast track you anywhere in that direction, especially if you only read half of it! But if you are someone really interested in facial perception this book is invaluable. It explains all the movements of the facial muscles in conjunction with each of the 6 basic emotions and explains variations. "Fear" can have at least 4 mouth positions and each one symbolises a slightly different type of anxiety or level of fear. Also interesting is the discussion of expression blends; such as Happy with disgust,anger,or surprise.

I remember seeing an advertisement a few years ago where someone was supposed to look really worried but in the closeup photo the actor just raised his eyebrows, the basic signal for surprise. The advertising company probably spent £100k on the campaign, based on facial expression, but didn't know the basic expressive signals, or see their error, they definitely should have read this book!

The Darren Brown-o-philes will be interested in Chapter 11 which explains "micro-expressions" which last less than a second but indicate the true nature of what the subject is feeling. These operate a bit like a blush, by the time you've felt it, its already happened.

If you are interested in portraiture, acting, makeup, or any kind of analysis of emotional states espressed on the face, it is a great reference book and one that is always cited in other face perception studies.

Reasonably interesting but not mind blowing
The first few chapters of the book are general discussion about facial expressions, and the variety of similarity in them even across cultural boundaries. These are the most interesting segment of the book, after which it goes in to discussions of individual expressions such as fear, disgust etc. The problem is the expression are quite exaggerated and the people who are used for this are not supermodels and you may grow exceedingly tired looking at their faces.

I got this book from the bibliography in Derren Brown's recent book but I fear this is a little bit of misdirection in itself, reading this book will not give you superhuman powers to observe what people are thinking based on visual tells, besides which the expressions in the book are exaggerated and false - as if they've been told to 'look angry' - which leads of course to mechanical and unrealistic looks, like in acting, the actor must not try to look angry, he must feel angry and his face will move naturally in to the expression.

I have not studied the subsequent chapters in detail about individual emotions but I do not think it would be a fruitful body of research to bother with. I understand there are more technical books on the same subject, perhaps these would be better, with a topic such as this you have to study it seriously (with a better book than this) or simply not bother.