Signs caused by the autonomic nervous system

So far, I have been discussing the actions performed by the musculoskeletal system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) also produces certain changes in the body that are noticeable when emotions arise: changes in the frequency and depth of breathing, frequency of swallowing, sweating intensity (changes in the face due to ANS, such as paint, flooding the face, pallor and dilated pupils are discussed in the next chapter). These changes accompanying the onset of emotions occur involuntarily, they are very difficult to suppress, and for this reason they are completely reliable signs of deception.
The lie detector measures these changes in the autonomic nervous system, but many of them are visible without the use of special equipment. If a liar experiences fear, anger, agitation, grief, guilt, or shame, this is often accompanied by increased breathing, an uplifting of the chest, frequent swallowing, the smell of sweat, or a protruding sweat. For decades, psychologists have argued whether a characteristic set of ANS changes exists for each particular emotion.
Most psychologists think that this is not the case; They believe that any emotion causes rapid breathing, sweating and swallowing movements. Changes in the ANS depend on the strength of the emotion, not on its character. This view is contrary to the experience of most people. People experience different physical sensations in a state of, for example, fright and in a state of anger. According to many psychologists, this is because in different states they interpret the same sensations differently. But this is not proof that the activity of the ANS itself is really different in cases of fear and anger ^[81] . My most recent research paper, begun shortly before the end of this book, disputes this view. If I am right and changes in the ANS are not always the same, but, on the contrary, are specific to each emotion, this can be very important in detecting lies. Due to this, the verifier can detect even without a detector, guided only by sight and hearing, not only whether the suspect experiences emotions, but also which emotions he experiences - fear or anger, disgust or sadness. Although, as will be described in the next chapter, mimicry gives similar information, people are able to suppress many facial muscles. The activities of the ANS are much more difficult to control.
We have so far published only one paper ^[82] , and many major psychologists do not agree with what we have been able to find. The data I received are considered contradictory and insufficiently proven; Nevertheless, they are reasonable and, I am sure, over time will be accepted by the scientific community.
Trying to find convincing evidence of different activities of the VNS with different emotions, I saw two problems and thought that I could solve both. One problem was the difficulty of obtaining pure samples of emotions. In order to compare the ANS changes caused by fear with the corresponding changes caused by anger, the scientist must know for sure when exactly the object of his research experiences each of these emotions. Since measuring changes in the ANS requires complex equipment, the object must reproduce the patterns of emotions in the laboratory. And here the problem is how to evoke natural emotions in sterile, unnatural conditions. In addition, how can you frighten or anger a person without doing both? This last question is very important - if you frighten and annoy a person at the same time, you’ll get what we call a mixture of emotions. If the emotions are not tested separately (that is, the samples are not clean), it will be impossible to record the differences in the activity of the ANS for each emotion. And even if they are different, when the pattern of anger contains a certain amount of fear or a sample of fear - a certain amount of anger, as a result it will seem that the ANS changes are the same. To avoid a mixture of emotions is not easy, both in the laboratory and in life; mixed emotions are much more common.
The most popular technique for collecting samples of emotions is the following: an object is asked to remember or imagine something scary. Suppose an object imagines that he is being attacked by a robber. The scientist must be sure that, besides the fact that the object is frightened, he does not feel anger towards the robber or himself for his fear or for having fallen into such a foolish situation. Other techniques have the same drawback, since with their help, getting mixtures instead of pure emotions is just as likely. Suppose a scientist shows a scary film to an object, perhaps a scene from a horror movie, for example from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, where Tony Perkins suddenly throws a knife at the receiving shower Janet Lee. The object may be angry with the experimenter for being scared of him, angry with himself for his fear, angry with Tony Perkins for attacking Janet Lee, feeling disgusted at the sight of blood, grieving, looking at the suffering of Jenet Lee, wondering what is happening action and so on. It’s not so easy to think of a way to get samples of pure emotions. Most scientists involved in ANS research simply took it as an axiom (I think in vain) that the objects of the experiments carry out the required actions at the right time and “provide” them with samples of pure emotions. They did not take any steps to ensure the selection of truly pure emotions, or at least to ensure their purity.
The second problem was the need to take samples of emotions in the laboratory, that is, the use of various kinds of devices. Most people are embarrassed about what will happen to them in the lab. During the experiment, this feeling is enhanced. Wires are attached to various parts of the body to measure ANS activity. Only in order to monitor breathing, heart rate, skin temperature and sweating, you need to attach a lot of wires. At the same time, most people are embarrassed: after all, when they are connected to the device, scientists observe what is happening inside the body in minute detail, and the cameras often also record any visible changes. Embarrassment is an emotion, and if it causes any activity of the ANS, these changes of the ANS will be superimposed on every sample of emotion that the scientist is trying to get. He may think that an object at one moment remembers something terrible, and at another - relives the once-tested anger, but in fact, against the background of both of these memories, the object is also embarrassed. None of these researchers took steps to reduce embarrassment and did not perform any checks to ensure that embarrassment did not spoil the purity of the samples they received.
My colleagues and I have eliminated the embarrassment factor by choosing professional actors as the objects of study ^[83] . Actors are accustomed to seeing them, and observing their every movement does not cause them negative emotions. They even liked the idea that they would connect wires to them and monitor the changes inside their bodies. By the way, the study of actors helped to solve the problem of obtaining samples of pure emotions. Actors, trained for years in the application of the Stanislavsky system, learned to skillfully recall and experience the emotions tested earlier. They practice this technique in order to use the memories of feelings in the creation of various images. After connecting the equipment to the actors and sending video cameras to their faces, we asked them to recall and experience with maximum intensity the strongest feeling of anger in their lives, then fear, sadness, surprise, happiness and disgust. This technique was used previously by other scientists, but we believed that our chances of success were higher, because, unlike them, we dealt not just with people, but with trained professionals. Moreover, we did not take it for granted that the objects of the experiment will do exactly what we say; and made sure that we get not a mixture of emotions, but pure samples. In the course of the experiment, we periodically asked the actors to assess how strongly they felt the desired emotion and whether they felt any other emotions. All samples, accompanied by extraneous emotions, only approaching in strength to the required, were discarded.
The use of actors in the experiment also made it easier for us to try a second method for obtaining samples of pure emotions that had never been used before. We discovered this new way of evoking emotions by chance a few years ago when we were doing other research. We studied which muscle is responsible for which facial expression. My colleagues and I systematically reproduced thousands of facial expressions by filming them and then analyzing the changes in appearance caused by each combination of muscle movements. To our surprise, when we performed muscle movements associated with emotions, we suddenly felt changes in our body due to ANS activity. We had no reason to expect that the intentional movements of the facial muscles could cause involuntary changes in the ANS, but this happened again and again. True, we still do not know whether the activities of the ANS differed for each particular set of movements. We told the actors exactly which facial muscles to move, giving our instructions for each of the six emotions. The actors were not embarrassed either when reproducing facial expressions on demand, or because they were being looked at at that time; they did it skillfully and easily fulfilled most of our requests. Nevertheless, we again did not take completely for granted that they would reproduce precisely the emotions we need. We made a video of their faces and used the results only if, at the time of the measurements, the set of necessary facial movements was reproduced completely.
As a result of these experiments, impressive data were obtained in favor of the fact that the activity of the ANS is not the same for all emotions. Changes in heart rate, skin temperature and sweating (we measured only that) are different for different emotions. For example, when the movements of the muscles on the faces of the actors corresponded to anger or fear facial expressions (remember, they were asked not to portray these emotions, but only to perform certain actions by the muscles of the face), their hearts beat in more cases, but the skin temperature changed differently. Her skin was hot with anger and cold from fear. We recently repeated this experiment with other subjects and obtained the same results.
If, when conducting similar experiments in their own laboratories, other scientists also get the same results, this will give the opportunity to fundamentally change the effect of the lie detector. Instead of just trying to find out if the object is experiencing any emotion at all, the detector operator can tell by measuring several data of the ANS, what kind of emotion it is experiencing. The verifier, even with the naked eye, will be able to notice changes in the pattern of breathing or sweating, which can help detect the presence of specific emotions. The number of errors in the detection of lies, leading to the fact that they believe not a truthful person, but a liar, could be reduced if the activities of the ANS, which is very difficult to suppress, would allow to determine the suspect's feelings with accuracy. We still do not know whether it is possible to distinguish emotions only by visible and audible signs of the activity of the ANS, but now there are reasons to find out. How can the signs of specific emotions (regardless of whether they were seen in the face, body, voice, words or changes in the activity of the SNS) help determine whether a person is telling the truth or is lying? What is the danger of making a mistake in this case and how to avoid it is the topic of chapter 5 "Basic mistakes and precautions".
In Chapter 1, “Lies. Information Leaks and Some Other Signs of Deception,” we said that there are two main types of lies: hiding information and distorting it. Until now, this chapter has looked at how words, voice, or body give out hidden feelings. Distortion of the information occurs when the liar does not experience any emotions, but demonstrates them, or when you want to disguise the feelings experienced. For example, a person may take a sad look upon finding out that his brother-in-law’s business has failed. In the event that he absolutely does not care about his brother-in-law, fake sadness simply helps to keep propriety, but if he secretly rejoices in the misfortune of the latter, the expression of sadness will help to hide his true feelings. Whether words, voice or body can unambiguously expose the falsity of such expressions, showing that in fact a person does not experience the emotions shown, nobody knows. Misses when depicting fake emotions were studied much less than information leakage while concealing emotions. I can only offer you my observations, theories and guesses.
Despite the fact that the words are directly intended to convey information, it is difficult to describe emotions by anyone, both truthful and liar. Only a poet can convey the nuances of human experiences. And it’s no easier to describe real feelings than imaginary ones. Neither eloquence, nor refinement, nor persuasiveness are usually peculiar to any other description. Only a verbal description, in the absence of voice, plastics and facial expressions, cannot convey the true meaning of emotions. I suspect that most people are able to deceive others quite well, giving their voice intonations characteristic of anger, fear, grief, happiness, disgust, or surprise. Although it is very difficult to hide the characteristic changes in the sound of a voice for these emotions, it is much easier to portray them. But the easiest way to fool people is with a voice.
Some changes caused by the autonomic nervous system are easy to imitate. Rapid breathing or swallowing is difficult to hide, but no special art is needed to imitate them: just breathe faster or swallow more often. True, perspiration is more difficult to hide and to portray. I think, however, not many liars use rapid breathing and swallowing to create the impression of negative emotions being experienced.
Despite the fact that the cheater can increase the number of manipulations, trying to demonstrate that he is “not at ease”, most people, in all likelihood, will not remember this possibility in time. These actions, which are so easy to perform, can by their absence betray the falsity of convincing in all other respects assurances.
Illustrations can be performed intentionally (albeit with a low probability of success) to create an impression of interest and enthusiasm that is not really felt in relation to the subject of the conversation. As the newspapers say, former presidents Nixon and Ford worked on their speech with a teacher who recommended them to increase the number of illustrations. When I saw them on TV, I constantly had the idea that it was as a result of these studies that they began to look so unnatural. It is very difficult to correctly combine illustrations with words when doing it intentionally; they tend to be ahead of words, or to be late, or to be overdue. It's like, for example, while skiing, trying to think about every move - you start to look just awkward.
I described the signs that occur in behavior, which may indicate the presence of hidden information, indicate that a person has badly thought out a line of conduct, or indicate emotions that do not correspond to a given line of conduct.
Reservations linguistic and emblematic, as well as tirades can give any hidden information: emotions, committed actions, plans, intentions, fantasies, ideas, etc.
Evasive speech, pauses, speech errors and a decrease in the number of illustrations can mean that the speaker speaks very carefully, because he did not think through the line of conduct beforehand. These signs may accompany any negative emotions. The decrease in the number of illustrations can also occur from boredom.
Increased tone, volume, and rate of speech are accompanied by fear, anger, and possibly excitement. Oppositely, sadness and, perhaps, guilt change the voice.
Changes in breathing and sweating, rapid swallowing due to severe dryness in the mouth are signs of strong emotions, and it is likely that in the future, by the nature of such changes, it will be possible to determine which ones.